


and a swelling rage

by possessed-bylight (free_pirate)



Series: and a swelling rage [1]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, King Fili, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:04:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/free_pirate/pseuds/possessed-bylight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels the weight of the mountain on top of them, millions of tons of stone bearing down, pressing him to breaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what my brain is doing. This is going to be a giant angst-fest.

He hears the impact before he feels it, a loud, sickening crunch that reverberates in his teeth. Thorin meets the ground before he realizes that the source of the noise was something making contact with his own body, gasping for air before he feels the exquisite, mind-numbing pain breathing brings.

There is no sound for a moment, only some large and incomprehensible hurt licking at his skin, at his insides, everywhere. His back must surely have been the point of impact because it feels as though someone’s lit a fire in the skin around his spine; it’s the only distinguishable feeling, separate from the larger pain that’s spreading through him.

Thorin’s sword slips from his fingers but he doesn’t feel it do so, only watches it hit the ground when he finds the strength to open his eyes. He slumps forward, breath coming short and ragged. The command to stop him before he hits the ground goes unanswered by his arms, and he’s left lying in the mud of the field, trying to breathe around the tightening constriction in his chest.

His eyes attempt to flutter closed but he’s determined not to let them. This is the one focus he keeps in mind as he watches feet stomp past, goblins with their pale skin almost transparent in the dying light, Dain’s men in their heavy boots. It seems like ages pass while his limbs slowly go numb, watching the fight raging on around him but unable to do anything other than attempt shallow, broken breaths.

And then he hears something above the clash of steel to steel, above the guttural battle cries of goblins and dwarves and the delicate, musical lilt of Sindarin almost lost within the din. Someone is calling his name from very far off, and he wants to lift his head, cry out, something, but trying any of these things only brings panic; he can’t lift his head, can’t gather enough breath to cry out.

There is no warning beside heavy footfalls behind him, the soft thump of a weapon hitting the ground. There are hands on his shoulders, pulling him over, and just the touch drives what precious little breath he has out of him again.

It takes Thorin a few seconds to recognize the one holding him, and when he does it’s another pain, something smaller but above his own suffering. He won’t make it – the clarity of that thought is startling compared with the blur every other thought has become – and here is what he will leave his heir; a kingdom torn by negotiations he won’t hope to understand, a tradition he knows nothing of and the support of a scattered few. He has Erebor, its endless riches, the crown and throne that his title will demand. Everything else will be hard won.

He recognizes Fili, so much like Frerin – golden-haired, easy to smile. Frerin was more like Kili in disposition; as second born, he didn’t have to shoulder the burden that Thorin always carried, the weight of the mountains on his shoulders. Sweet, brave Frerin, who never wanted anything but his approval.

And he’s back at Moria then, with Frerin’s hands hovering over him, not Fili’s. There’s blood matted in his brother’s hair but he looks unhurt; it’s Thorin who is spread on the ground, blood bubbling up from between his lips to stick in his beard. Frerin’s come for him at last. He only spent a precious few years with his brother, but Thorin feels the ache of loss now as keenly as he has every moment since his death.

There’s a look in Frerin’s eyes that Thorin can’t place, doesn’t want to – he is the cause of this look and he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone; he just wants to stop hurting.

He wants to reach up and touch Frerin’s face but his arms won’t obey, and then Frerin says, “Uncle,” small and ragged, torn from his throat – and there are eagles wheeling overhead, like there never were at Moria. He coughs, air pushing out from lungs that have nothing left to give.

“Fili,” he says, voice not his own, barely more than a whisper. There’s another cry from somewhere to the left. Thorin’s eyes are fixed on Fili’s face, but he knows from the look he finds there that Kili is safe, that Fili was in doubt about it, and that his fears have been assuaged.

There’s a small sound on the air, and a solid thump behind Fili, and an orc falls over screaming. There’s a dark-fletched arrow buried in its thigh, which moments before was inches from Fili’s ear. Kili joins them, kneeling in the mud with his bow tossed aside. If he wasn’t hurting, if he couldn’t feel the life leaving him in bits and pieces, he would urge caution.

Kili is close enough to touch, but trying to reach out to him proves fruitless. He watches Kili’s face for a few moments, watches the shock and hurt play over his face, and before he has a chance to summon the strength to say anything Kili is up again, screaming out a battle-cry in unbroken Khuzdul. He picks his bow up and slings it across his back, unsheathes his sword and holds it ready in front of him. Something pulls at Thorin’s chest that has nothing to do with physical hurts.

Above him, Fili lowers Thorin’s head to the ground with the utmost care, strong, gentle hands on the back of his neck, combing one last time through his hair before they grasp swords again. Fili echoes Kili’s cry and launches himself into the writhing horde of goblins and wargs.

The last thing he sees before his eyes slide shut is the arrow that buries itself in Fili’s shoulder, catching him mid-swing and sending his sword clattering to the ground. It gives the orc that he’s fighting enough of an opening to bury his blade in Fili’s side.

The last thing he hears is Kili’s roar.

*

As Fili rises to consciousness, he feels light and heavy at the same time. For a long time he can just lie there, can’t feel his body at all, can’t see or hear. He just exists, and for a long time that’s all there is.

And then he feels pain.

First there’s the deep ache in his right shoulder. It comes on suddenly, so suddenly it feels like he’s been shot a second time. And he can’t cry out in pain because his mouth isn’t working, can’t thrash like he wants to because he can’t move.

And then feeling seeps downward, reaching a critical point – his right side, and then he can’t feel anything but pain. It’s sudden and intense, feels like something vital is missing. He begins to twitch as much as he can manage, flicking his fingers in small motions that go seemingly unnoticed.

The next thing is hearing. It approaches him cautiously, like he’s getting closer and closer to people conversing even though he himself isn’t moving. He hears a voice – the first he’s heard in a long time, and it’s… the hobbit’s? But… didn’t Thorin exile him from the mountain? Are they in the mountain at all?

Where is he?

He’d ask if he could, but until he can speak he holds the question in the back of his mind, burning and festering.

After some time of just hearing, fading in and out of sleep, he hears Kili’s voice. It’s calming, just about the best thing he’s heard since he’s been able to hear again. But Kili doesn’t sound like himself. He sounds gruff and too-short with Oin, who Fili’s been able to identify as the voice he hears most often, muttering to himself as he tends to the pain. He likes Oin. Oin makes the pain go away, at least for a while.

But Oin leaves the two of them alone, him and Kili. He wants to twitch his fingers, do something Kili will understand, but at the moment the strength is just outside of his grasp. He’s wasted it all on listening.

He listens still, listen to Kili’s sigh. He feels Kili’s fingers in his hair, at first just running through, then undoing the braids in his hair, and redoing them carefully, weaving them together with care. “Fee,” he says, name he hasn’t used since they were younger. Fili wishes he could do anything but remain impassive. “Please, please,” Kili gasps, voice husky. Fili tries so hard to break through the heavy blanket of immobility that’s holding him down, but he’s stuck. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t move.

“I can’t do this on my own,” Kili continues, fingers tightening in Fili’s hair. “I _won’t_.”

It’s so characteristically Kili, stubborn and determined, that Fili wants to smile. His mouth doesn’t respond, but it’s not for lack of trying. “I need you,” Kili says, voice only wavering slightly. Fili wants to tell him that he’s here, that everything will be okay, that he wouldn’t leave without Kili anyway.

He wiggles his fingers.

Kili lets out a strangled noise of surprise. “Oin!” he calls, touching Fili’s hand. Fili wants to crawl into the warmth that is Kili and never come out, never let him feel this way again. How did he get hurt? Why can’t he wake up?

*

Kili doesn’t leave his side after he finds signs of life. He talks sometimes, and Fili looses track of the conversation, weaving in and out of consciousness. He feels Kili touching him, a constant pressure on his hands, in his hair. He has his braids redone so many times a day that he doesn’t understand how Kili isn’t tired of it yet. Other people come and go, but Kili is always there.

Fili is constantly trying to get his body to respond, to do more than move his fingers – he tries in vain for what feels like days. His pains have faded to dull, constant annoyances. Part of it is not moving, he supposes, but if he could move he’d gladly deal with the pain.

His frustration peaks when Kili is fiddling with his hand, just pressing the tips of his fingers into Fili’s palm for the contact and Fili tries to clench his hand around his brother’s fingers, catch them and stop them from moving. When his palm encloses skin, Kili makes a triumphant sound and calls for Oin again.

A few moments later, Fili opens his eyes and is immediately blinded.

There is only torchlight in the room, but even that is too-bright. Faces swim into focus above him, Oin and Kili and Bilbo lurking worriedly out of the way. The wild, happy grin on Kili’s face looks a bit strained like he hasn’t had cause to use it lately, but it’s the most beautiful thing Fili’s ever seen. His own mouth twitches up.

“You’re awake!” Kili says, happier than Fili’s heard since he could hear again.

“I’ve been for a while.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, scratchy and hoarse. He remembers wanting to ask for what feels like forever, so he does. “Where are we?”

*

It’s six days before Fili can walk again without the immediate, disabling pain flaring in his side. There are no windows here, and being unconscious for so long has ruined his sleep cycles; he only knows the day at all because Kili tells him faithfully, sitting by his bed day in and day out. There is no cheerful chatter like there should be. Kili is still and quiet as the stone around them most days, eyes distant unless Fili is addressing him directly.

It’s a change from the way Kili was when he first opened his eyes. He was more like himself then. But Kili’s been through so much in Fili’s time recovering. He isn’t surprised, just wishes he could make his brother carefree again.

He feels guilty. This is his fault, letting his concern for Thorin to distract him, get himself hurt. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid it. Six days he’s been lying on this cot with his brother despondent beside him, and he occupies himself with imagining the tongue-lashings Thorin would give him for being so slow. Fili can imagine them easily enough, but the knowledge that he’ll only be imagining them sets off a deeper ache, something unrelated to the gaping wound in his side or the constant twinge in his shoulder as the muscles knit themselves back together.

He’s worn himself out hobbling around the room, and he’s back in the cot for now. Kili hovered over him like a mother hen, and Fili is only a little ashamed at having to rely on his brother’s help to get around. At the same time, it’s the first time since he woke up that he’s seen Kili present, really present.

He won’t stay there long; despite the protests he faces when he does anything that could possibly injure himself further, there are things he needs to tend to. He’s been laid up for too long already.

The first among these is something he and Kili must do alone.

The crypt is deep in the mountain, so deep that not even Smaug’s corruption could reach it. When he makes the suggestion, Kili immediately refuses, shoulders stiffening. “There are too many stairs, you can’t possibly make it,” he says, but the look in his eyes tells Fili that the stairs aren’t his concern.

In a different time, he might have teased his brother about being afraid of ghosts to get Kili to agree, defensive and eager to prove him wrong. The words fall to ash on his tongue now – he knows it’s nothing to do with childish fear.

“That’s what the stick is for.” The knobby walking stick leaning in the corner was a gift from Bilbo, who suggested it might be useful for getting around when Kili wasn’t there to help. The unhappy set to Kili’s mouth afterwards and the way he glared at the hobbit made something long-forgotten stir in Fili’s chest, something that burred there and stuck, rubbing raw against his lungs. “And that’s why I’ve got you here.”

Kili looks away, fastens his gaze on a spot on the far wall. From where Fili’s settled back against his too-flat pillows, he can’t see Kili’s face, doesn’t know if he wants to. He wishes he didn’t have to make Kili do this.

But they won’t let him go alone, and chances are he couldn’t make it back without help. Taking anyone else seems wrong, doesn’t settle right. It should be his brother.

“Please,” Fili says, and Thorin’s voice rises at the back of his mind. _Kings don’t beg_. But he isn’t a king, not yet, no matter how much everybody seems to be acting like he already wears the crown. There are ceremonies that have to be undertaken to secure his title, and as soon as he can stand on his own without falling over they will be prepared.

But this is something he has to do before then, something they both have to do. Fili needs to see Thorin’s effigy, carved in the cold stone, needs to prove to himself that his uncle is gone and the responsibility of leading their people falls to him. There’s an ache deep inside that should be proof enough, but he’s not going to take that at face value.

Next to him, Kili lets out a shaking breath, fingers gripping the sides of the cot too tight, blankets bunching. “We should wait until your strength has returned.”

Fili’s been hearing that for days now, since he showed interest in getting up and moving around, in fulfilling his duties. He breathes in and out, once, twice, and keeps his temper under control. “There are other things that will need my attention when my strength is returned.”

Kili’s fingers flex in the blanket, digging his heels in.

“If you won’t help me,” Fili says, keeping his eyes riveted to Kili’s ear, the only bit of his face he can see, “I’ll call Dwalin or Bofur. I’m sure they’d be more than willing to—“

Suddenly, Kili is on his feet, chair moved back from all of the tense energy leaving his body. Fili doesn’t let himself smile, doesn’t let himself win, because this isn’t a victory. If Kili never had to go down there, Fili would be happy. But this needs doing, and he needs Kili there with him. It’s selfish but it’s the only way Fili knows how to be when it comes to his brother.

“Come on then,” Kili says, and Fili can hear how hard he’s gritting his teeth. “We should go before someone tries to stop us.”

It takes Fili full minutes to lever himself up, trying to bend only one side of his body and not succeeding overly well. His legs feel loose when his feet hit the floor, more water than solid, and Kili is by his side a second later to bear his weight as he gets to his feet.

This is the part that hurts the most, really. He can feel the stitches pulling at his skin when he moves too quickly, and that’s uncomfortable, but his entire left side is a mess of indistinguishable pain.

He bites the inside of his cheek and breathes in, out.

Kili brings him a sheet of paper, insists they at least leave a note. It wouldn’t do to have what remains of their company out for blood if they find them missing. Fili scratches out a short explanation as best he can; his hand fumbles over the shape of the letters, unused for so long, but in the end it looks legible enough. Kili lays it on his pillow and returns, slinging Fili’s left arm over his shoulders, pressing the wound tight and immobile against his side.

The pull stretches a bit, hurts at first, but when they start walking they establish a rhythm that doesn’t hurt as much and gets them moving faster. The stairs down to the crypt are going to be painful, as it should be. Every sharp pain is repentance.

Making it across Erebor without being seen is wishful thinking, they both know this. Neither of them are surprised when they run into little Ori, tucked into a corner near the entrance to the mountain with a dusty tome opened in front of him. Fili’s momentarily glad it’s Ori and not Dwalin, but there’s still a ways to go yet. He shouldn’t count his blessings.

Ori almost doesn’t look up, too absorbed in whatever he’s reading, and they can almost slip past.

And then Kili’s foot shuffles too loudly across the dirty stone floor, and Ori looks up, startled. It takes him a moment to speak. “Fili! I mean, Your—“

“Don’t,” Fili says, wincing as Kili shifts wrong against his side. “Not you too.”

Ori flushes and looks down at his feet for a moment, and then back up at them. “I don’t want to offend, or – be presumptuous, but shouldn’t you be resting?”

“He should be,” Kili mutters, casting a dark look at the floor.

“I’ve rested long enough,” Fili says, dropping his arm from Kili’s shoulders and hobbling embarrassingly slowly across the small room to where Ori is sitting. “We’ll be back, and if you could just please not tell anyone about this? I’d be very grateful.”

Ori nods, watching him oddly. “Of course. But where are you going?”

Fili stops for a moment, catching his breath and trying not to sigh. He was dreading this question. “It’s not important. We won’t be in any danger, okay? We’ll be back in a while.”

There’s a stubborn little line between Ori’s eyebrows that reminds Fili too much of Dori for his liking, but in the end he concedes, returning to his corner and the book that’s barely keeping itself together. “Just be careful,” he says, watching them. He keeps watching them until they’re gone from sight, Fili nestled back against Kili as they shuffle out into another long, straight corridor.

Navigating Erebor is treacherous business, with so much of it destroyed by the dragon or falling apart from disuse. They only hit a couple of rough patches, places that fill Fili with a sort of terrible awe – stone melted from the heat of dragon’s breath, entire walkways knocked out from the force of a well-placed tail thrash. Mostly, the dwarves who built Erebor built it to last. The dragon has had more effect in some places than others, and the further they get from the treasury the easier it becomes to move freely.

The stairway down to the crypt is narrow and dark, and he’s left leaning against an intact pillar while Kili finds a torch. He lights it with a quick flick of the flints in his tinderbox, and tries to direct the light towards the stairs.

“Is it mostly still intact?”

“It’s solid,” Kili says shortly. “All the way down, it’s good. There are more torches at the bottom.” He looks down at the opening like he wants it to swallow him up, and Fili tries to grasp his shoulder, ends up with a hand pressed to the back of Kili’s neck instead. There’s cold sweat forming there under the heat of all of Kili’s wild hair, and Fili rubs little circles into the place his pulse pounds with a thumb, trying not to press too hard or too sharply. Kili’s breath catches anyway, fingers clutched tighter around the torch in his hand, and Fili pulls his hand away.  

Kili starts down the stairs first without another word, face unreadable in the torchlight. Fili moves toward the first step as easily as he’s able, side already throbbing from the exertion. He doesn’t want to think about how it’ll feel when they reach the bottom, or on the path back up.

The first few steps are a fumbling attempt to get it right, to put each of them in as much comfort as possible while still making progress. After those first few, a routine develops where Kili steps down first and Fili grips onto his shoulder, using him as leverage so his feet don’t give way and his side doesn’t split open when he makes the step down.

Never in his life has Fili been somewhere that was made specifically for their kind. He’s used to having to navigate the streets and steps of the men in the places they’ve stayed, his smaller, stouter legs unable to make many of the large leaps that men made so effortlessly. Here, the steps were made to accommodate shorter legs, Fili finds himself immensely grateful for it as their journey into the dark of the mountain wears on.

Midway down the stairs, they stop for a short break. Kili insists on checking Fili’s wound, pulls away shirts and bandages until the ugly mark is visible to the torchlight.

“Oin’s going to kill me for taking you someplace this dirty,” Kili says, looking at the gash intently. “I’d hate for it to get infected from all the dust.”

“If you’d cover it back up, you’d have nothing to worry about,” Fili says, more irritated than he means. He’s tired of having people poking at him, tired of being scrutinized like this. He’s tired of having the wound at all, a constant reminder of his own stupidity. Having people constantly pointing it out is wearing on his nerves.

Kili doesn’t seem to be listening. “You’ll have a huge scar,” he says, moving the torch to his other hand and moving his fingers over the wound, a suggestion of a touch. Fili can’t feel the heat from Kili’s fingers like he knows he should, whole area alive with tenderness.

He allows this for a few moments before he steps back a half pace, uses his right hand to secure the bandages and lets his shirts fall back over it. “I’ll be fine,” Fili says, more quietly than he wants to. “Let’s keep going.”

They continue in silence, descending into the oppressive dark.

The staircase ends abruptly. There is a long dusty corridor leading deeper into the mountain, and there are carvings on the walls. Fili touches them, running his fingers over symbols he doesn’t know, so ancient that no one alive would probably know them. But even without knowing what the symbols mean he can tell what they say – words of esteem, words of honor, merit, and courage. Odes to the House of Durin, every one, and Fili has never felt less worthy to sit the throne of Erebor, to share blood with the ones these words were written for.

There are more torches along the walls, and When Kili starts lighting them with his own dwindling flame Fili can make out impressions in the thick dust layering the ground, fresh boot prints and long scrapes where the floor is bared.

When they brought Thorin down, of course.

“There’s a,” Kili starts, clears his throat. “There’s an even passageway where they brought—not down the stairs.”

Fili nods, tearing his eyes away from the marks and back to Kili, who’s standing down the passageway, stopped halfway to another torch. He looks over his shoulder, waiting, and Fili makes his way down the corridor until he’s again by Kili’s side.

“How much farther?”

“Just down here.” Kili continues lighting torches until the very end of the passageway, where lurks a large, dark doorway. It’s a strong arch, carved directly from the stone, with runes framing the opening. They’re etched deep, still legible after all this time; some ancient Elvish tongue that he can’t read, and dark, bold Khuzdul that he can.

His eyes sweep over the runes and a lump rises in his throat. He pushes it down and steadies himself with a hand against the stone passageway.

It’s utterly silent down here, and dark beyond the spread of the torchlight. Kili hesitates uncertainly before the door, shoulders set, bracing himself. Fili takes a deep breath and pushes himself off the wall, ignores Kili’s offer of help . He will stride into the resting place of his forbears proud, tall, and without assistance.

Fili can’t see how long the room is, only that it is lined by more heavy archways on each side. Each of these archways have inscriptions over them, the names and words of respect for the dwarves resting within. Kili is careful with the torch, resting it in the bracket present in each tomb when they step inside. Fili waits for his brother to be beside him before he starts the ritual bowing process. It pulls at his stitches, and by the time they reach the end of the room they might very well pull out, but Fili doesn’t care. He will bear this without a flinch of pain, and possessed of all of the nobility his House demands of him.

It’s a long process, making their way through the tombs of their forefathers. In each archway, they stand and, in unison, read off the Khuzdul inscribed above before paying their respects. It’s a tradition they’ve never had to partake in, but one Thorin made sure to teach them.

Fili feels his stitches pop long before they reach the end of the room, and he’s mid-bow when it happens. He almost, almost gives himself away, but outside of a small intake of breath he keeps silent; even that is enough to make Kili’s eyes snap to him, but Fili doesn’t acknowledge it, continues with the ceremony without pause.

Each effigy along their journey has been different – at first, the changes were stylistic only. The faces on his far ancestors were chiseled very square and heavy from the stone, like the statues that guard the entrance to the mountain. They aren’t realistic countenances, but meant to impart the strength and honor within each ruler buried here. As the years wear on, entire generations passing before their eyes, it changes; the figures become more realistic, more detailed.

The farther they walk into the mountain, the heavier Fili’s shoulders feel.

At last, they reach the tombs of Thror and Thrain, empty but no different than the rest of them; dressed elaborately, and the style in the stone carvings is the most realistic he’s seen yet. They spend more time here, perhaps delaying the inevitable.

These tombs are left the same they were the day the dragon attacked – there is no date of death carved into the archways, no words of great deeds. Fili has heard enough stories about his grandfather and his great-grandfather that he will make the trip down again and add them himself. It doesn’t do for a dwarf lord’s resting place to go unadorned, not like this. Perhaps Kili will assist him, and they’ll work out the indelicate, thick lines of the most esteeming things they can think of together.

Fili lingers in Thrain’s tomb longer than he should, looking down at the face of their grandfather. Mother always had such nice stories about him, told only on dark, fireside nights when Thorin wasn’t at home, off  to secure trade with another settlement or settle a dispute in a neighboring house. Thorin never spoke of him more than was strictly necessary, and when they were small Fili remembers asking his mother why, remembers the look on her face that made him immediately wrap his arms around her neck and apologize for asking.

When he tears his eyes from the stone likeness of their grandfather, Kili is watching him, eyes wide. Fili nods and turns, slowly, mindful of the burning in his side. There’s a lump rising in his throat, a heaviness on his chest, and he doesn’t want to keep going. He doesn’t want to see the effigies for their uncles, the one they never got to know and the one that he, at least, knew too well.

Across the corridor is Frerin’s tomb, the arch bare. There’s nothing to read out as they step inside, and once there they realize that they should have known; Frerin was too young to have an effigy carved when Erebor fell. Thorin’s might have been done before, crown prince and older besides, but there is no stone face on Frerin’s tomb. There is a plain rectangular casket where his body might have lain if it hadn’t been burned at the gates of Moria with Thror and the countless warriors who fell there. He was younger than he and Kili are now.

Fili’s been told many times since he woke that he is young, that he’ll pull through. That his wounds will heal. But Fili feels shattered, old, as he pays his respect to the blank slab that is all remaining of their youngest uncle.

He feels older still when he straightens, now-wet bandages sticking to him, and with the knowledge that he doesn’t want to step into the last tomb.

They leave the memory of Frerin behind as they step into the corridor, the last archway yawning huge and dark before them. The torch is shaking, Kili’s hand unsteady, and Fili puts a hand to the bandages at his side, pressing the wet cloth into the wound to try and stanch the flow of blood. It’s a distraction, sharp bite of pain that stops the lump in his throat from bursting into a cry, into traitorous tears. He is one of the last remaining heirs of Durin. He and Kili, standing here at the mouth of something large and terrible, are all that are left of the dwarves they’ve been paying respects to.

He takes the torch from Kili’s shaking hand, his own not much better, and steps into the dark opening of Thorin’s tomb.

The dust has been cleaned from the floor. The torch bracket is new, fashioned of shining metal instead of the dull, rusty counterparts lining the corridors. Fili keeps his eyes riveted to it, mind focusing on his task as he attempts to fit the torch in with hands that feel suddenly large and useless.

Kili steps in behind him, his breath heavy and thick, clogged in his throat. Fili turns to look at him first. Kili’s eyes are sparkling in the light of the torch, face open and hurt. He’s shaking, minute little shudders running the length of his body as he very carefully doesn’t look any farther into the tomb, eyes fixed on Fili.

Fili wants to say his brother’s name, wants to cross the small space and make that look go away, but he can’t do either. His feet are rooted to the floor, watching his brother slowly fall apart at having to face this again.

When he finds his voice, he croaks out, “I’m here,” around the thickness in his throat, and at the look on Kili’s face he can’t hold it anymore. He feels the prickling behind his eyes and doesn’t try to hide it. Kili steps closer, in Fili’s space, and Fili moves aside, turns, and looks at Thorin’s effigy for the first time.

It’s not a perfect likeness. He looks incredibly young and peaceful in stone. This is a Thorin they never knew, before the dragon, before the weight of the world. It’s not a realistic depiction; they don’t have his nose right, eyebrows a shade too thick, and in the effigy his beard is longer, longer than they’ve ever seen it. Fili wonders if he might have grown it again when he reclaimed the throne, no longer in mourning for those lost to Smaug.

Kili’s shoulder presses into his uninjured one, needing the contact, and Fili leans into him, responding as he always does.

He remembers, suddenly, the battle. The moments before the arrow in his shoulder and the blade in his side, before he hit the ground and woke, days later, without knowing where he was. He remembers Thorin lying in the mud of the battlefield, unable to move, muttering to his dead brother. He remembers the look in his eyes, the apology there, and the ragged sound of Kili’s battle cry when he found them, Thorin’s head cradled in Fili’s lap.

After that there is only pain, dulling all of his senses. He remembers lying in the mud next to his uncle, watching his eyes flicker closed for the last time. He remembers wanting to do something about it, but his lifeblood was rushing out of his side in great gushes. He felt oddly at peace until he heard Kili’s cry, breaking through the haze of pain; he couldn’t leave Kili alone, not like this. He’s too young, it’d be too much for him, he’s not been groomed for it the way Fili has. No, he…

Kili’s hand on his arm breaks him out of his memories, and he realizes that tears are falling freely from his eyes now, leaving clean streaks on his face, dirtied from the dust. He bows as low as he can without completely opening the wound in his side again, and next to him Kili does the same. They stay bent for longer than they have before, and when they straighten, Kili sags.

His shoulders fall, and he breathes out in a quick whisper, “I. I washed the blood – it was everywhere, so much of it.” He turns to face Fili, pleading with his eyes. “His hair needed – I redid his braids, added a few with new clasps they gave me. I wish—“ He takes a breath, sucks in a lungful of air before continuing. “He looked like a king, Fee. I wish you’d have seen him.”

“Because he was,” is all Fili can say, raises his hand to tangle in Kili’s hair, rubbing at his scalp the way he used to when they were children. He’s holding himself together with threadbare rope, feels like his entire body might break from the force of what’s weighing down on him. He feels, keenly, the weight of the mountain on top of them, millions of tons of stone bearing down, pressing him to breaking. “I’m so sorry,” is what he says, but it’s not what he means to.

Kili nods, buries his face in Fili’s shoulder and sobs, sound loud and echoing in the quiet. Fili holds him as best he can without falling over, not tearing his eyes off Thorin’s heavy stone likeness. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and this time he doesn’t know which of them he’s talking to. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out! Real life has been kicking my ass lately. The next bit's already written, you'll be relieved to know.

When they were younger, their favorite stories were the ones Thorin told them of Erebor. They were bedtime stories, told in the hush of the dark house; Kili would curl up in their uncle’s lap, eyes slowly drifting shut and starting back open on a cycle that rose and fell with his words. Fili would sit on the floor, chin on Thorin’s knee, rapt.

They absorbed his words, breathed them like air. Erebor was written into their minds as strongly as it was written into their blood, a home they’d never known but that must surely be wonderful, golden and glittering. They’d reconstructed the mountain on an idea that it couldn’t possibly live up to.

The mountain is nothing like those stories, not initially. The dragon has left much untouched, but what he has corrupted is almost too far gone to salvage.

Fili gets his side re-stitched, ignores Oin’s grumbling and Dwalin’s fuming, settles back onto his cot and waits. He stays there dutifully, moving about only to regain the sense of moving. Kili spends less time sitting at his bedside. There are things to tend to in the city and Fili itches to get out there and deal with it himself. He wants to stop sending Kili because Kili isn’t made for this. This was never supposed to be his job.

They bring him reports like they’re supposed to, and they do nothing to stifle the urge to ignore his wounds and get to work fixing the kingdom.

By his own stubbornness he ends up stuck in bed for longer than he was originally supposed to. The gash in his side takes twice as long to heal because he didn’t stay off of it the first time; long after the muscles in his shoulder have knit back together, his side twinges with every breath.

The Dwarves that once called the mountain home are returning. It’s a slow trickle of craftsmen at first, men with skill in metalwork and masonry; they leave their families behind in the scattered villages of Men and come ready to rebuild.  It’s a show of loyalty Fili didn’t expect, but it’s not loyalty to him. It might not even be loyalty to the Line of Durin. Erebor inspires things in people, though how much of that inspiration stems from the mountain itself and how much is connected to her vast wealth is unknowable.

It feels like ages before he’s well enough to deal with the demands of the people. More are coming every day. No matter how quickly the craftsmen are working to get the city back to an operational level there are still more dwarves to house and feed.  He sends Bofur and a small group of others to evaluate the ruins, to find out where they need the repairs most.

The first day Fili is deemed capable of dealing with his own affairs is spent in meetings with the head craftsmen, discussing where they should focus their efforts. Kili is a constant presence hovering behind him, like he’s waiting for Fili to fall over at any moment. By midday he’s so exhausted he can’t even be frustrated about it.

The King’s apartments are situated down a dark, labyrinthine passage that hasn’t seen light in over a century. Only minor repairs are needed to the royal complex; this part of the city escaped the dragon’s reach. Fili resolutely refuses to let them anywhere near it with their tools. The residential districts are crumbling around them, and with the volume of dwarves arriving to the mountain they’re going to need those inhabitable.

It’s a noble excuse, and a good cause, but it helps to disguise the taste of fear at the back of his throat, the feeling of innate wrongness when he thinks of living there.

There are a few pockets of rooms that were mostly used for servants before that have been untouched. Fili takes one of the smallest he can convince them to give him (and even then it has a fireplace, but that’s something he’s going to have to accept). Kili takes a room down the hall. It’s the first time in his life Fili’s had a room to himself, and despite how tired he is after long days in the ruined city he finds himself unable to sleep without the sound of his brother’s steady breathing. The room feels too empty without Kili’s soft snuffling snores. 

A large caravan arrives from the Blue Mountains shortly after Fili is up and moving. It forces him to consolidate different families to the same rooms to give everyone a place to sleep without them spilling into the corridors and stairwells; the first move he makes is putting Kili in his room.

That night is the first he truly sleeps.

*

Trade negotiations are terribly tedious. Meetings are fast becoming his least favorite occurrences, long hours locked into a dusty room with envoys from any of the surrounding kingdoms, men and elves alike. They’re still walking the edge of a knife with the Elvenking; Fili is not his uncle, but he does remember long weeks locked in the dark, afraid that they might come for him but absolutely terrified they would come for Kili.

A civil relationship with their neighbors to the east is the key to prosperity. He repeats it like a mantra, hoping it will sound more convincing each time. He is continuously disappointed.

Despite his best efforts to keep them away from his symbols of status, the craftsmen have repaired the throne. Smashed and half-missing, it is now returned to its former glory. Fili’s coronation looms, a constant presence lurking on the horizon to match the dark cloud that is his brother constantly at his side. Kili is mostly quiet, sits in on the meetings without contributing a word. Sometimes Fili catches his brother watching him, but he has little time to think about it.

All of his time is devoted to worrying.

He tries to remember what Thorin had begun to teach him about leadership, about what they’d have to do when this time came. What he doesn’t remember Balin does, and together they figure out a plan of action that will get the mountain to its knees, if not entirely back on its feet.

They’ve yet to set a date for the ceremony, but Balin insists it must be soon. The longer they stay kingless the more vulnerable they are, and with the gold in their treasury it would take a fool not to see it as an opportunity. Fili sets conditions only to be denied. There is an old Khuzdul proverb about not feasting until your halls and family are secure; tradition tells them they must wait.

Need tells them otherwise. 

*

It’s been a long day of debating. Fili has been in the meeting chambers almost since he woke, and by the time the evening meal is brought to them he wants nothing more than a nice rowdy tavern and a bottomless mug of honeyed mead. Kili is watching him; he can feel the weight of the gaze resting between his shoulders and he rolls them, tries to physically shake the feeling off.

When he sits again, his point made and reasoning exhausted, Kili is closer than he remembers him being before. He rests a hand on Fili’s shoulder, a casual touch that burns through his layers of clothing. The stab of want hits him full in the stomach and he can’t remember the last time he was touched in affection; even this small touch sends him aching and needy.

He takes a deep, steadying breath and closes his eyes briefly.

“I think it’s time the meeting was adjourned for the night,” Kili’s voice says near his ear, low so the Men in the room won’t hear, and Fili nods, breathes out slow and stands, shaking Kili’s hand off of him.

“Perhaps it is best if we reconvene in the morning; we have had a long day, and rest will help us see clearer,” he says, trying to incite half the noble bearing Thorin would have exuded. This seems a constant personal failure. Thorin wore his status like an addition layer of furs draped across his shoulders, regal and steadfast. Fili feels like he’s folding beneath the weight.

The envoy looks like he might argue, but in the end his better sense wins out. Fili leaves the meeting room, breathes in the smell of the mountain with something akin to reverence. Kili is right behind him, and they walk back to their room in silence.

As soon as the door is shut behind them, Fili sheds his overcoat and drops into a chair by the fireplace. He rests his head in his hands and sighs heavily. He half-expects Kili to say something, but the silence endures; he approaches, heavy footfalls stopping behind his chair.

There are hands on his shoulders, thumbs laid along his neck. It’s an intimate touch, too intimate, and Fili’s torn between pulling away and sinking back against those hands. Kili’s fingers are far too nimble for a dwarf; comes from all the archery, Fili supposes. They work their way under his shirt, tentative feather-light touches down his neck.

Kili’s hands meet skin and they rest there for just a moment, half a second, like he’s waiting for Fili to pull away. When Fili doesn’t move, Kili presses in with his thumbs and fingertips, kneading the skin under his hands. After a few moments of just this, manipulating the muscles in his brother’s shoulders, Kili moves Fili’s hair out of the way, pushing it over one shoulder to keep from pulling.

He reaches around the other shoulder, reaches down Fili’s chest and touches the laces holding his shirt closed. At first he just touches them, almost asking. One of Fili’s own hands reaches up to close over Kili’s, stopping him. “ _Kili_ ,” he says, and he sounds just as miserable as he feels.

“Relax, ‘m just. Need more room,” Kili says, voice too close to Fili’s ear for comfort. After a quick squeeze, Fili drops his hand, lets out a shaky breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Kili makes short work of the laces, pushes Fili’s shirt open and off his shoulders so he can see the muscles there twitching as he works at them.

The fire is warm. Someone set it earlier in the evening and a little circle of warmth has collected in front of it. Fili makes a small happy noise as Kili forces him to relax with quick, clever strength. He thinks only of the way those hands feel on him now and not that he knows how they feel when set to other, more intimate tasks.

“You’ve taken to leadership,” Kili says from somewhere above, bringing Fili back to the room and the fire. His voice is soft, low, something Fili hasn’t heard in so long – his brother talks so rarely these days that he treasures each word, rolls them around in his mind.

After a moment, he snorts, an unforgiving sound. “Like a cat to water.”

“Not true. They love you.” Kili presses deeper, harder, working at a knot in the muscle. “They’ll be glad to have you as king.” He’s choosing his words carefully, but it’s a reminder Fili doesn’t need. He sighs, flopping back against Kili’s hands in a decidedly undignified way.

“I’ve told you, I don’t—I’d rather they have a home to come back to.” He’s tired, and it must seep into his voice because Kili stops for a moment, brings one of those talented hands to the back of Fili’s neck and plays lightly with the muscles on either side of his throat. “And besides,” Fili continues with a happy sigh. “I’d like Mother to be here, if nothing else.”

Kili moves back to his shoulders, snaking downwards and working against the awkward angle to start on his middle back. “And it seems wrong to bring her back here when it’s still not perfect, I understand.” Fili makes an approving sound and smiles. It’s his first real smile in what feels like decades “But we should send for her regardless.”

His smile fades a bit, falters. He feels like this Erebor, the Erebor that still reeks of dragon and destruction, would break his mother’s heart. But he concedes his brother’s point. She’d want to be here, and if she knew that it’d been this long and they hadn’t sent word she would have tanned their hides, king or not. “I suppose you’re right. That should buy some time. It’s a long way to Ered Luin.”

“If she’s not on the road already,” Kili says, and Fili can hear the smile in his voice. It’s one of the most beautiful sounds he’s heard today.

“I’ll see who I can send in the morning.” Fili sighs again, leans back into Kili’s touch. “Mahal you’re good with your hands.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he regrets them. Kili stops moving, presses his body close to Fili’s back for a few seconds before removing his hands and pulling away. He brushes through Fili’s thick golden hair with his fingers, takes the clasps out of his braids and undoes them, lets his hair fall in a curtain around his face. He brushes all of it together, off Fili’s shoulders and out of his face.

“Thorin would be proud of you,” is what he says, voice husky. Fili doesn’t look around no matter how much he wants to, doesn’t let Kili see the flinch that his words bring. Because that’s not true, no matter how much Kili would insist it was. Thorin would have things moving by now. Thorin would tell the envoys exactly what was going to happen, wouldn’t allow room for argument or acknowledge the fact that they were in a precarious place politically. Thorin would wear the crown already.

But Fili doesn’t need the heavy, physical weight on his brow to feel the pressure. He feels the phantom of it just fine, and it leaves him aching and angry.

He’s always _angry_ lately. That’s usually that’s Kili’s job, or at least it has been for decades now. Fili’s always there to mellow him out, to be calm and collected in the face of his brother’s wrath.

They’re changing, being molded into new shapes. He misses Kili’s smile, his wide, wild laugh. He misses his brother happy, chattering away about everything and nothing, offended to death at the slightest dig against his beard or skill with his bow. This Kili, this brown-and-blue storm cloud, is a pale imitation of what he once was.

Perhaps in time the sting of loss will fade, the responsibility of leadership won’t be quite so heavy. Perhaps one day they can be themselves again, FiliandKili, two halves of the same whole. There are too many jagged edges to both of them now; they slant off each other, scraping and bruising, trying to fit but never quite able to manage it. 

*

Dis arrives on a clear, warm spring day. Fili and Kili emerge from the front gates to meet her caravan, all traces of dignity forgotten as they jostle each other, light and laughing. For a moment they are children again. Fili attempts to school his expression into something less gleeful as the caravan reaches them, as he directs them into the mountain and ignores their bowing and scraping.

There is grey threaded through her hair, mimicking her brother’s. It wasn’t there before they left for the quest, and she looks tired more than anything, face drawn as she leads her pony. When she sees them her face lights up, grin splitting her face. She urges her pony faster and they move forward to meet her. Fili takes her into his arms without preamble and Kili embraces both of them pressing his face into their mother’s hair like a child.

They cling to her like they’re small again, like she’s the only one in the world that can make things better.

Later, they sit by the fireside in their room, Dis resting in Fili’s usual chair and her sons sprawled on the furs in front of her. She’s brushing through Kili’s hair, trying to untangle it and work it into some semblance of respectability. Fili knows as soon as she retires for the night Kili will undo all of her careful work, but it doesn’t matter. His brother is squirming, talking easier than he has in a long time.

Fili is watching them, happy to just observe them interacting. They are very much alike, Kili and Dis. When they fight it feels like the mountains will shake down with their combined fury, but they don’t fight very often. Thorin was always overpowering when he was angry, an unstoppable force that few were able to stand against. Dis is mostly gentle, but she has a streak of wild fury that Kili matches step for step.

“Sit still!” She hisses at her youngest, his squirming dislodging yet another braid from her talented fingers. She weaves them through and through again expertly, quickly, and despite Kili’s constant complaining she manages to get two neat sets of braid to stay in his hair, capping them off before he has a chance to worry at them. “There,” she says when she’s finish, pulling his head back into her lap, forcing him to look at her. “It won’t do to have to running around with your hair loose like a Man.”

Kili scoffs at her, rests his head out of her hands. “Mother, they won’t stay. You know they won’t!”

There’s a knock at the door, cutting through Fili’s laughter. It fades almost immediately and he stands, brushes off his clothing and assumes a place of authority by the mantle. Dis and Kili watch with identical dark eyes as Fili bids them enter; there is some trouble with the caravan that arrived today, and Fili is needed to sort out where people should sleep. There were residences completed this morning, but they need to be assigned with a fair hand.

He throws on his overcoat and leaves to take care of it.

*

The door closes behind Fili with a finality that echoes around them. Kili pulls away, shifts to face his mother on the floor. They look at each other for a long moment.

“I’m worried about him,” Kili finally says, nodding towards the door.

Dis shifts forward in her chair. “It’s not an easy thing, being a king. Less so when you’ve taken over a kingdom in ruins.”

“I wish—“

“I know,” she says, cutting him off. Pain passes over her face for a half a second before it’s gone again. She reaches out to run a hand down his face. “I wish that too.”

He wants to tell her everything, the overwhelming sense of foreboding that’s settled over him, the constant worry for his brother, the niggling, sickening sense of want he thought he’d banished a long while ago. He wants to tell her how angry he is at Thorin for leaving this to them, how much he wishes they’d never left home.

Kili feels like an empty shell, full of fury and swirling emotion he can’t outlet. He needs to get away from the mountain but Fili can’t leave and he can’t leave Fili.

“I’m so proud of you,” Dis says after a long moment of silence, stroking through his hair. “My brave boy.”

“Not me,” he says, sounds just as small and lost as he feels. “I’ve done nothing that merits pride.”

Dis makes a small protesting sound. “Stop that. You’ve done—“

“I think I’m going to get some sleep,” Kili stands abruptly, moves back out of the circle of warmth afforded by the fire and reaches for the jug of water on the nightstand. He turns his back, splashes his face and shakes the water off like a dog. By the time he turns again, wet hair dripping, he’s alone.

*

The last time there was a coronation under the mountain was centuries ago. There are nearly none alive now who remember the celebration. Fili’s ceremony will be based heavily on tradition because there is nothing else to go on, and it will be remembered not for its grandeur but because he is the first King Under the Mountain since Thror, two generations removed from the last.

Work on the city kicks into overdrive, craftsmen working day and night to provide guests with places to stay and the promised grandeur of Erebor. The malachite walls gleam in the lantern light and the complicated mirror system that channels the shafts of light to the deepest parts of the mountain are repaired. Families have long since been arriving, and the houses of the residential districts are beginning to show personal touches.

Some days it feels like there was never a dragon at all.

Dis pulls Fili into her room one day as he’s finishing up a meeting, closing the heavy door behind her to keep even Kili’s ears away. “I wanted to wait to give you this, but it seems that necessity has forced my hand.” The box she’s holding is made of heavy ash wood, carved with intricate ancient runes. Fili watches it warily, already out of sorts from the day’s debates.

She pulls the lid off slowly, reverently. Resting inside is the heavy crown of the House of Durin. It still shines, glinting roughly in the low light of the torches around them, and Fili’s eyes are riveted to it. For a long moment he says nothing, mouth dropping open, and then, “I thought it was lost when Thror—“

“A great many things were thought lost. I have kept this even from Thorin out of hope we might one day reclaim Erebor. You have delivered us home—“ she fixes him with a look to halt his protests – “and so it is yours.”

“I… thank you, mother.” Fili watches it for long moments, reaches out and runs his fingers along an edge of the heavy metalwork. It’s as beautiful as it is deadly. He can already feel the weight of it upon his brow and he hesitates, pulls his hand back. “I will wear it proudly.”

Dis puts the box on her desk and pulls him close. “You will do great things, _haban_. So much is expected of you, and you are so young. But you will prosper. You will build the mountain up again and you will rule for years and years.”

Fili clutches at her back, hands tangling in her hair, every inch the little boy she remembers. “I’m not him,” he says, sounding defeated. “I can’t—“

“You can.” It’s the only thing she can say. It will not assuage his fears. It will not take away the guilt he’s feeling, the overwhelming feeling that this isn’t _his_. It won’t solve anything in the long run, and Dis feels useless for not being able to bring her father or either of her brothers back from the dead, for not being able to inherit herself and save her son this fate. 

*

It is perhaps more important now than ever before to cling to their traditions. Of course, most of the dwarves that have returned to the mountain aren’t entirely sure what those traditions are, and Fili himself is getting by on only a vague understanding of his childhood lessons with Balin.

The night before his coronation is spent in preparation. It isn’t like he would have been able to sleep anyway, not with the knowledge of what will happen at first light. He has no idea what the ceremony will entail; he descends to the level of the meeting room he was summoned to with shaking hands.

It’s horrible not knowing what is required of him. This is something that really should have been discussed before now, so he might have had more time to prepare himself for the tasks ahead. Somehow he knew it wouldn’t be as easy as having the crown placed upon his head and saying a few words to seal his place as king.

Balin waits for him within the room, accompanied by a few other older dwarves that Fili didn’t know. There is a steaming basin made of some precious, shining metal in the corner and a large wooden table in the center of the room. There is another door on the other side of the room, directly across from the one he’d entered through.

They stand there in silence for a moment, facing each other across the long expanse of the table. Fili steps further into the room, closing the heavy door behind him and taking a seat at the end of the table. He figures this might be what’s expected, and he breathes a tiny sigh of relief when the others quickly assume their own seats.

Balin sits on his right, approaches the topic diplomatically. It’s the only real way Fili’s ever known him to approach a delicate topic, and this is far from the first time Balin’s used that tone on him. This alone makes him feel more relaxed, at ease with the situation.

There will be a ritual purification that will be attended by the dwarves surrounding, priests and councilmen. They never set much store by religion in their exile, but now that they’ve again found their home the old ways are returning. These men have kept their vows even while away from the mountain, and now they are tasked with preparing Fili – an ignorant youth in their eyes, he imagines  - to take the mantle of King upon his shoulders.

After he is pure of body, he will approach the sanctuary through the door opposite and spend an undetermined amount of time becoming pure of spirit. When that is done and first light approaches, he will be told about the ceremony the next day, and the priests will leave him to Balin while they prepare the Grand Hall.

He will not be allowed to sleep or eat until these tasks are complete. The grand feast is already in the beginnings of preparation in the halls below, and at the prospect of not eating until this is finished Fili imagines he can almost smell the meat cooking.

When he’s been given a few minutes to process this information, he stands, eager to begin the process so it may be completed.

*

It is many hours later when Fili steps into the ring of fire in the middle of the ceremonial hall. He is mentally and physically exhausted. Regardless of the heaviness of his limbs, his mind is almost serene with clarity. There has never been a time when he wishes for his heavy leathers more than now. He’s been stripped down to only clean linens, light and scratchy against his skin. He’s at least been given the opportunity to use his own swords, a small blessing; they are extensions of his arms, move with him rather than because of him.

He has a better chance of pulling through this victorious with them.

The dwarf across the ring cuts an impressive figure against the air wavering above the fire. Fili doesn’t know him, and there is a possibility that he was chosen specifically for that reason. He’s been imagining the way this would play out since Balin told him what would happen, and in his mind it’s always been Dwalin standing across from him, wielding his mighty axes.

But Dwalin had a hand in teaching him swordwork. He knows the way Dwalin fights, and it would demean the honor to be found at the conclusion of the fight.

The fact is, Fili will be crowned no matter what happens here. It’s more a show of prowess than anything. This is how he gains the respect of his people. They close the ring of fire behind him, heat crawling up his spine as it catches and flares. The other dwarf bows respectfully, and Fili copies the motion, readjusting his grip on his swords.

The fight begins without any clear indication; they’re circling each other, backs pressed almost flat to the fire. And then the other dwarf steps into the middle of the circle. Fili watches the way the fire dances in his eyes, already breaking into beads of sweat as the other dwarf lunges at him.

He wields a hammer, impossibly large and heavy. If Fili had known, perhaps he would have chosen his own as his weapon of choice. But with his swords and the swiftness they afford him, he almost has the advantage.

Almost.

Fili dodges sideways, careful not to let the hammer touch him. This is not a contest of killing; the object is not to maim his opponent in any way. To do so would be seen as an act of dishonor rather than what is intended. No, they fight to draw blood. The dwarf who draws first blood will be judged as the more worthy, will have the respect of the people.

Fili dodges another heavy swing of the hammer, wondering if his opponent was given that particular piece of information. Perhaps he’s testing.

He’s never been as light on his feet as his brother, but he’s still lighter than most dwarves. He places himself on the other side of the fire ring, watching the way the other dwarf hefts his hammer, the way he holds it. The placement of his hands is all wrong; at least, it doesn’t match what he’s been taught, and perhaps that will be his advantage.

He’ll never draw blood if he keeps on the defensive.

The other dwarf circles for a moment, and they get back to their earlier form; tracing the inside of the ring, staring each other down. The crowd outside is completely silent, held in thrall by their careful dance. It’s far more graceful than any fight Fili’s been in recently, and for a moment the phantom of an orc’s blade cuts through his side and he twitches, trying not to betray the pain.

Fili starts forward, trying to draw the other into the offensive. His heart is thundering in his ears, adrenaline unlike he’s felt since the day he received the wound propelling him onward despite the exhaustion settling in his limbs. He gets the other to take a few tentative steps forward.

Sweat falls down his scalp, itching under his hair as the fire heats the air around them. He lunges with one sword and the dwarf leans out of his reach, swinging his hammer around with a fluidity that doesn’t seem like it should belong to someone so large.

And suddenly their graceful dance is broken; the other dwarf parries furious sword thrusts one after another with the shaft on the large hammer; Fili’s limbs ache with the exertion but he doesn’t let up, pressing his advantage. When he switches paths and tries to bring one sword into the flesh of his opponent’s thigh the dwarf stumbles, barely brings his hammer around in time to stop the swing.

Fili snarls, the only sound in the room besides the crackling of the fire and the pounding of their feet on the stone as they run each other across the ring and back again with furious slashes and heavy-handed parries. It seems like ages that they do this, chasing each other forward and back. Fili’s arms ache with the jarring force of the hammer landing across the broadest part of his swords. Sweat falls into his eyes, wriggles down his spine; the clean linen he’d been given to wear for the occasion is soaked through with it, darkening the fabric, and tendrils of curling hair stick to his forehead.

This is what he imagines a blade feels like as it’s being forged, metal heated and struck until it assumes a more useful shape.

The fight lasts long past when it should have ended; if they were aiming to kill each other it would have been done a long time ago. But this is more delicate and after a while their movements become slow, sluggish, affected by lethargy. Smoke has gathered near the ceiling and pulls back down, clouding the ring and making it more difficult to see his opponent, but he must be in as much pain as Fili is with how he’s moving. And of course, his heavier weapon is not helping him.

Fili can feel the strength leaving his muscles as they reach breaking point, as he weakens beyond what his body was created to endure. He gathers what he can find remaining and presses forward one last time, counting on the other warrior’s weariness to slow him down further. He is rewarded when the hammer misses a beat, doesn’t automatically come up to block his attack. Fili’s second sword makes a daringly wide arc, air whistling as the blade cuts through, and the blade lands on the other dwarf’s shoulder.

The feel of the blade cutting through skin reverberates up the metal, singing into Fili’s palm. He lets out a triumphant sound as the thick red begins oozing out to coat his blade, and he pulls it back before he unintentionally buries it further and ends up hurting his opponent.

There is a roar rising up from beyond the fire ring as the crowd catches sight of the red. Fili drops both of his blades and sags, all strength gone from him, task accomplished.

The dwarf in front of him drops his hammer, bows low and averts his eyes. The fire around them is doused, and one of the councilmen from the night before steps across the cinders and bows before him, raises his arm to the crowd. The roar intensifies, and Fili grins despite himself, trying to catch his breath.

He has proven himself worthy. For the moment, all of his worries are gone.

It might be an hour before the cheers die down for all Fili knows, staring dazed out at the crowd. When it is quiet again, or relatively so, his councilors lead him away. They leave the smoky hall and follow a winding corridor to a small room with a basin of steaming water.

He must clean himself for his presentation as the King Under the Mountain. Right now his limbs don’t feel capable of the task, but he tells himself that it’s just two more steps, three more steps, and then he can rest. He just has to get through his presentation and the hardest parts are already over.

They don’t stay this time, don’t watch over him as he purifies himself, and in the brief moment of privacy Fili sits in the scalding water and tries to work his head around what’s happening. He has done his family proud in this if nothing else. He doesn’t deserve the praise, but right now his resolve is weak and he is tired enough to accept it. The cheers of his people still ring in his ears as he sets about cleaning himself, washing sweat away with the soft cloth they’ve give him.

When he stands, water sliding down his body, he is immediately attended to. A servant brings him fresh linens and a coarse brush to work his hair back to something manageable, something more regal than the mess it’s become through his trial.

He’s working his hands through, finding the strands he usually braids together, when his brother finds him. “Kili,” he says, tries to keep his exhaustion out of his voice. “Should you be here?”

“Balin sent me,” Kili says, eyes roving over Fili’s body, checking for signs of injury he knows won’t be there. He’s still paranoid; Fili can’t blame him. If it were his brother in that ring instead of himself, he would have been right there beside him as soon as the flames died. “You need the new braids in your hair.”

Fili had almost forgotten about this. In all of the other things that had happened since he last slept, the braids had gotten lost. He hands Kili the brush, bows his head just that small amount more so Kili can see, and submits himself to the fingers pressing along his scalp, massaging. It’s those nimble fingers undoing him again, and he’s too tired to resist the small sound that wants to escape at the touch.

But Kili ceases his teasing and finds the hair he wants, pulls the braids through quickly and effortlessly. These are special for more than the obvious reason; the design is intricate, but Kili’s been practicing them. Fili tries to imagine Kili working them into his own hair, weaving dark strand over dark strand until the braids of kingship rested there, and finds that Kili with any sort of braid is impossible for his mind to achieve.

When he’s finished, he admires his work, takes Fili’s jaw between his fingers and tilts his head to see properly. Fili reaches up to touch them, run his fingers over the loops and dips. “Thank you, Kili,” he says as he touches them reverently.

This moment feels more like a coronation than it will when they place his grandfather’s heavy crown on his head.

Kili steps back, claps him on the shoulder suddenly. “You did well. The people will love you for it.”

There’s a moment when Fili almost slips, in the haze of elation that Kili’s words bring. He flushes with pride and glances down at the floor.

“Now,” Kili continues without waiting for him. “We have to get you into your new armor so the people can properly greet their King.” He’s grinning, just a little sadness lingering around his eyes, and Fili wants to wipe it away.

His new armor is made of heavy plate, nothing like what he was expecting. The craftsmen haven’t had much time to prepare it, but the plate still shines, is still heavy when Kili lifts it onto his shoulders and does the straps along the sides. The breastplate is engraved with his own personal symbol, gems set heavy at the points of the stylized crown he’s always considered his. It’s strange how that symbol is so like him but the reality of it suits him far less.

Kili helps him strap it on, complicated and nothing like what he’s used to. If this is finery than he’d rather not have it, would rather go back to his dirty leathers and heavy overcoat and leave it at that.

But this is what’s required of him, at least today. So he puts it on and wears it proudly, the King Under the Mountain, one of three living members of the line of Durin the Deathless.

He marches out to meet his people, head held high.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this took forever. I'm the worst, I admit it. I'm over on Tumblr as feel-yfilifeels if you'd like to follow me there; it's where I do the majority of my bellyaching about how my writing is treating me. I'm still not happy with this. Slightly shorter this time, but I hope you enjoy anyway. <3

When the crown is placed on his head, Fili nearly sags with relief. The only thing that stops him is the eyes on him, watching his every breath with ravenous eyes, searching for cracks, for weakness. They always will be now. He straightens his back and tries to look as happy and regal as he can manage.

There is a short break when the proceedings are over. It allows him to get away from the earsplitting shouting of his people. He leaves the throne room and follows through unfamiliar paths to his new apartments, properly his now that he is King. He doesn’t want them, not really; one peek inside confirms his suspicions that they are outrageously grand. They’re too large for him. The whole of their house in Ered Luin could fit into the main chamber with room to spare.

The lush furs that cover the stone floor muffle the sound of his plated footsteps. Fili begins removing his ceremonial armor with more difficulty than he should have. He wishes for another set of hands to help him undo the clasps and buckles, but it’s no use wishing. The entire mountain will be starting the celebrations early. If there is one thing dwarves love, it’s having a reason to drink heavily and sing bawdy songs until they can’t remember the words. And the dwarves of Erebor desperately need something to celebrate.

After much difficulty he gets the heavy plate off and sets it carefully on the stand in the corner of the room. He removes Thror’s crown (his crown, now, but he can’t think of it like that) and places it on one of the tables near the fire.

Fili just wants to rest. He doesn’t think sleep will come even if he tries, and if he did manage to sleep he wouldn’t be able to wake himself in time for the feast. So he sits for long moments in the chair by the fire, sagging back into the almost ridiculous softness of the cushions and relishing in not having any eyes on him.

He appreciates being given this moment of reflection amid the tediousness of the day. As he looks around his chambers, he feels a profound sense of loneliness creep up on him. It’s so quiet, none of the sounds that should accompany a feeling of home. He wants to hear Kili’s laughter from the other room, his mother’s voice muffled by the space. He wants Kili’s talented hands working at the muscles of his shoulders until he feels a bit more like himself, but he doesn’t know where Kili is and he needs to get used to that feeling.

The size of the room makes him feel incredibly small. The emptiness makes him feel oddly insignificant.

With a deep sigh that rumbles in his chest, Fili stands, wobbling only a little on legs that are almost too shaky to support him. He finds the ceremonial robes they’ve laid out for him and struggles into them, fingers fumbling and vision blurring the longer he works at it. He must be presentable. He must always be presentable now. He takes a deep breath just inside of the door, shaking himself to wakefulness. Just once, he touches the new braids of kingship and finds the rise and twist of them anything but comforting.

*

The celebrations will last for days, it seems. Drink flows freely from the casks at the end of the long tables in the great hall. From his vantage point on the raised high table Fili can observe how his people are enjoying the occasion, the happiest he can provide for them right now. Smoke rises to the ceiling and spreads there, lending the room a hazy look that won’t go away no matter how much Fili blinks at it. It’s warm, too warm in his heavy robes.

He’s reached the point where his body will not support his decision to stay awake any longer. Next to him, Kili is laughing just as loudly as the rest of them, clanging his tankard against the sturdy wood of the table, open and free like Fili hasn’t seen in longer than he’d care to remember. He has to beat down a sudden blinding want, the urge to lean over and kiss Kili until they’re both breathless.

It would be so easy to give in. He’s too tired to give more than a shade of his regular resistance. With a supreme amount of willpower he pushes the hot, lecherous urge down until it subsides to a dull ache, a memory of wanting. Fili needs to get away from the warm, smoke-hazy hall, needs to get back to his chambers and force himself to sleep before he does something he’ll regret.

He makes his escape to the roaring and stomping of the dwarves below, what is left of the revelers now that most have receded to their homes. He slips out the back in the midst of their approval.

The air outside the hall is clearer, the deep, earthy scent of the mountain hitting him full-force. It’s cool tonight, and the sudden change of temperature has him more awake than he’d been five minutes previously.

As soon as he steps through the doors, the heavily-armed guards on either side of it fall in line behind him. He wants to dismiss them and let them join the celebrations, wants to be alone, but there’s nothing he can really do about it now. They are necessary.

The walk back to his chambers takes them past the open battlements that frame the recently-repaired front gate. Fili finds himself deviating from the path, stepping out into the clear night air right up to the heavy barrier. The stone is cool against his hands, and he resists the urge to lay his forehead against it. The flags atop every other rise draw his attention, fluttering quietly, nearly invisible in the early morning. He hadn’t realized how long he’d lasted until this moment; the warm glow that preceded the sun rising is just coloring the horizon.

Before the mountain, the ruined town of Dale huddles like so much firewood. Men haven’t started moving back to the settlement yet; it’s something they’ll have to have meetings about, something he will have to endlessly discuss with diplomats from the surrounding kingdoms. It’s the beginning of a mess Fili doesn’t want to think about right now.

Fili stands there for a long time in the serene quiet of the sleeping world. There are birds chirping as they fly around below, sounds muted somehow. He’s unable to tear his eyes from the horizon, colors slowly fading together as the stars fade from view.

When the sun finally makes an appearance, Fili’s eyes are starting to fall closed. He’s swaying just a little as he tries to keep his body upright. He steps away, takes a deep, calming breath and turns, trying to ignore the plated footsteps of his guards following.

*

When he wakes, it’s to light filtering down from the ceiling. They’ve reset and repaired the mirrored shafts that channel light into the mountain, though at this moment Fili almost wishes they hadn’t. It’s bright, lacking the heat of real sunlight, and not for the first time Fili doesn’t think he’ll get used to living under the earth like this after so long in the open air.

It’s well into midday, but things in the city will be sluggish today. Perhaps there will still be people celebrating, coming back to the hall after a break to continue the merrymaking. Fili doesn’t want to go back to the cheering and stamping of his people, as gratifying as it is; his head is throbbing, and if he has to do anything today he only wants to be in the practice ring with his favored swords or else at the forge, hammering a piece of metal to his will. He wants to do something that makes him feel more like himself.

But realistically, there are duties he has to see to. He’s not quite sure what they might be, how they might have changed with the official initiation of his title, but he has a pretty good idea of the type of thing he’ll be doing. Thankfully, not much will be required of him today, as most of the mountain will be recovering from the celebrations.

Maybe he will be able to sneak away to the forge after all.

There are different robes for his daily affairs, not quite as heavy and embroidered as the ceremonial ones he’s strewn halfway across the room in his haste to fall into bed. They are lighter and easier to get on and off, easier to move around in. He finds them after a short trip to the water jug in the next room, after he splashes his face and uses a nearby cloth to mop up the water.

When he gets them on he feels wholly ridiculous, would give his right arm for his overcoat when he catches a glimpse of himself in the looking glass. He affixes the crown on his head, feeling the weight of it keenly. It doesn’t help the throbbing.

It’s going to be a long day.

Fili is surprised to find Kili in the great hall. He looks like he’s slept and washed, though his eyes are a little darker than usual. Fili greets him with a clap on the shoulders that makes him wince.

“Surprised to see you up,” Kili says, looking miserable. “Thought you’d sleep all day.”

“I could say the same for you with the way you were drinking last night,” Fili replies, one side of his mouth quirking up under his moustache. There is food scattered around, the remains of a morning meal that Fili quickly assembles and devours, ignoring the way his stomach churns when the food meets with last night’s drink.

Kili smiles, a tight, tired smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s not every day your brother becomes King Under the Mountain.”

Fili returns the smile, doesn’t answer as he digs through his breakfast, hoping that some solid food might offset the alcohol swirling inside him. His head is still throbbing and swimming in equal turns. Perhaps he overdid it.

There are a few dwarves still slumped over the tables below, bodies situated in positions that have Fili wincing in sympathy. He calls one of his guards over and asks them to arrange for these remaining dwarves to be escorted home so they could recover. They have their uses, the guards, but he’s still not looking kindly on being followed everywhere.

He wonders, suddenly, if he could assign Kili as his guardian. As soon as he has the thought he discards it; though the tradition was that the siblings of the King are to be his protectors, he and Kili had not been raised in a society that supported such. Perhaps Kili will end up as Captain of the Guard after Dwalin.

The thought of having Kili around all the time was at once the best and worst thing Fili could think of. On one hand, he’d be able to spend time with his brother, an occurrence he was afraid might become scarce in the coming years. On the other, he would be given more opportunity to slip up.  
That wasn’t a problem a while ago, before he was King and before the quest to reclaim their home. He could deal with the want eating at him and leave it at that. Now it is of the utmost importance that he doesn’t give in to his less-than-proper urges. Not only is he fully sure his affections are no longer returned, this is yet another sector of Fili’s life that has to be governed by this title.

He wonders, with a sick sinking feeling, how long it will take them to start bothering him about marriage.

*

Fili spends much of the next week in meetings with his council. They set out a list of objectives for the further rebuilding of the kingdom; this time it has nothing to do with masonry and stonecutting and everything to do with politics. This is the part of kingship that Fili has been trained most extensively for. Though he can’t imagine Thorin being diplomatic of all things, it was his uncle who taught him this part of ruling. It was one of his favorite topics.

So he knows what he must do, in theory. Applying it when the elves are determined to be maddening and the men of Laketown are equally determined to be as difficult as possible seems an arduous task.

What time he doesn’t spend it talks with his councilors he spends walking through the city with his guards and the restoration crew. These outer parts of the city aren’t in need of any major repairs because it seems that Smaug never ventured this far. The passages were too narrow for him, or perhaps he couldn’t sniff out anything of value. These outer districts only need rescuing from the crawling disease of disuse.

Near the end of the week, he receives word from one of his councilors that they are ready to start sending the deep miners back down into the depths. They’ve had teams out working on restoring the mining shafts, Fili knows, but if there is one thing that stories of Erebor have taught him to fear, it’s this.

For one, stories of delving too deep are almost tradition among their people at this point; though he may not have received the same sort of traditional upbringing that would have made his kingship easier, he’s still heard the stories. There are things lurking in the deep places of the world, things far worse than dragons. They’ve just started to get back on their feet – to encounter any of those things and be driven from their home again would break his peoples’ spirit.

That is only part of his fear, though it should be his major concern. Another is that the deep miners, when they return to their work, might find something akin to the Arkenstone. The Heart of the Mountain, Thror called it, though there was no evidence that it was unique. And Fili has seen what it did to Thorin, changed him so completely with his lust for it. It’s a weakness of their people and perhaps it manifests more fiercely in their line.

Fili doesn’t want to think he’s safe from it because he wasn’t raised here. He doesn’t want to be given the chance to be driven mad by it.

But these are his own burdens to bear, these fears. He doesn’t know what truth is in these stories but it seems foolish to restrain the deep miners from continuing their trade because of a few tales. And hopefully they never find another Arkenstone, or anything like it. He is afraid of the monster that might rise up inside of him at the sight of it, afraid of turning into the terror they’ve saved their home from. With a dragon, at least they’d know what to expect. With a madman on the throne…

He tells his councilmen that he sees no problems with letting them return to their work, and keeps his fear to himself.

The rest of the week passes in much the same way. Sometimes Kili accompanies him on his inspection rounds, keen eyes pointing out faults where Fili wouldn’t have seen any. He keeps to himself mostly, isn’t allowed in their council meetings now that Fili’s title is official. He doesn’t see his brother much. He wonders what Kili’s doing with his time, if he should perhaps find out so he can align their schedules more closely.

The frustration of politics has his restraint slipping further away. He can’t help but think that Thorin would have been so much better at this, at balancing all that would have been expected of him. And he would have done it without any of his resolve flagging.

He hasn’t stopped thinking of his uncle since the crown was placed on his head. Truthfully, it’s been longer than that even; he hasn’t stopped thinking of his uncle since the day he woke up and found him gone. He never thought this would be his place – even if he had considered it, the event itself was far off, a distant thought but nothing lurking, because Thorin was still young enough to rule for many years, still perhaps young enough to find a wife to bear a direct heir. Fili always bore his duties and teachings with the utmost seriousness, but the thought of having to put them to use was never at the forefront of his mind.

And now he finds himself bereft of the only person who could have taught him how to be a good king. The only person who saw Fili’s desires and turned them away from the source, from the thought of something so unforgivably wrong. He still feels the poison of it, stronger now that Thorin isn’t there to put a stop to the thoughts before they reach fruition. It wasn’t any better, what he and Thorin had done to counteract their longings for things they could never have, but if they took solace in each other they were sparing what they might have caused others.

It’s been a while since he thought about his uncle in that way, the voice in his ear telling him to leave Kili to find his One, leave him to live his life without the burden of these terrible things. He still hears that voice, but it’s gotten weaker, farther away, and as the days pass it becomes harder to ignore the want rising up in him.

He doesn’t know which he wants more: Thorin, here, crowned King, letting Fili vent his urges on someone who won’t be hurt by them – or Kili, bright and innocent Kili, laid out panting underneath him, skin on skin and lovely, delicious friction.

Perhaps the time and distance will rid him of thoughts such as these. He can only hope that they do, otherwise he doesn’t know how to stop a different kind of madness creeping up on him.

*

The day that marks the beginning of the second week of his reign starts with Kili’s curious absence from the great hall during breakfast – he might have taken it earlier, Fili reasons, or else he might have left the mountain to go hunting in the woods like he was wont to do in Ered Luin. Nothing to be worried about.

By the time the sky is darkening, eliminating the last of the watery sunlight from the city and necessitating torches, Fili is tired enough that he takes his meal in his chambers. He’s slowly coming to appreciate the silence and solemnity they offer when his days are spent so publically. It’s quiet here, no sound above his breathing and the crackling of the fire, warding away the chill of the night.

His duties will be over for the day unless some problem arises. Fili takes off the vestments for his everyday affairs and sinks back into the chair at his desk. It’s covered with various pages of notes and missives to look over, but that will have to wait until morning. Now, his head is aching and it’s quiet, and if he works at it hard enough he might be able to imagine that he’s back at their home in Ered Luin, crickets chirping outside the windows and soft voices filtering through the walls.

But his reverie is broken by a swift knock at the door. Fili clears his throat, gives his permission, and then one of the guards (he needs to learn their names, he thinks, if they’re going to be dogging his every move) is pushing open the door. Kili stumbles in, coat rumpled and half-unbuttoned. His hair is a wild mess around his head, missing even the braids Fili has to insist he wear to denote his status.

It’s the first time Fili’s seen his brother, fully seen him, for most of the week. It doesn’t make a good impression.

“Kili—“ he says, rooted to the spot. He wants to run forward and help, but his feet won’t obey him and he has no idea what he’d do anyway. Kili is swaying a bit but he’s otherwise stable on his feet, stumbling only a little as he walks. From the look on his face, even that takes concentration.  
At first, he thinks the worst. Having assumed Kili was out hunting around the mountain, the sight of him now makes Fili think he might be injured. But when he finally gets his feet to move, shuffles forward, the smell of alcohol is rolling off of his brother in waves.

The door shuts behind him, still and as quiet as the guard can manage.

“Fee,” Kili says, drawing out the syllable until he’s nearly whining it. “Fee, I came to—“ And then he looks up, catches sight of Fili, and he tries to straighten, tries to sweep into a bow. The motion overbalances him and Fili rushes forward to catch him before he falls face-first onto the stone floor.

“None of that, now,” Fili says, helping Kili to the floor with a minimal amount of assistance. He knows his brother is taller, has been for a couple of decades now, but when did Kili get so damned heavy? All that training, he thinks, brushing hair out of his brother’s face. It must be.

“S’ry,” Kili slurs, leaning back against the ornate back of a chair near the fire. “I didn’t—“

“Where were you?” He doesn’t expect a straight answer out of his brother now, but it doesn’t stop him from asking the question. It makes him feel like he’s doing the right thing, if nothing else. When he thinks back, he hasn’t seen his brother for most of the last two days, something that would have worried him if he wasn’t being kept so busy.

“There’s this – this great tavern down ‘round the market.” Kili laughs, sounds weak and out-of-sorts. “Should try it sometime.”

“You know very well I can’t.” It’s supposed to come out less harsh than it does, but Kili doesn’t look wounded. “Shall we get you cleaned up?”

He makes to stand but Kili fists his hands in Fili’s shirt, pulling him back down and throwing him off-balance until he’s sprawled across the floor and half across Kili. Surprisingly strong for someone so far gone. Irritated, Fili tries to right himself, unclasps his brother’s hands from his shirt and stands, this time a bit further away. Kili reaches out, whimpers when he can’t get hold, and slumps back against the chair he’s resting on.

Fili soaks a nearby cloth in the cool water in the basin and heads back into the room, taking a moment to observe the sight of his brother sprawled on the floor of his chambers, looking at him glassy-eyed and almost completely unaware of his surroundings The only thing he does seem aware of is Fili, and as he kneels down in front of his brother to start cleaning some of the tavern-musk away, Kili looks up at him, suddenly sharp.

“Please,” he rasps out, head falling to the side so Fili can reach his neck, eyes never leaving his brother’s. Fili draws a breath, sharp and too-quick, at the sound of his brother strung out like this. The memory of Kili begging him for a completely different reason has his hands stilled, shaking drops of water from the cloth down the collar of Kili’s shirt. “Please don’t go.”

Fili shakes his head, tries to clear his thoughts before he goes back to work. “I’m not going anywhere. Hold still.” If his voice quakes a little, there’s no one around to hear.

“I miss you,” Kili says; he sounds lost, and lonely, and Fili wants nothing more than to fling the cloth away and pull his brother close. His resolve is close to breaking already, and with the soft admission in Kili’s voice—

But if he moved away now, Kili wouldn’t understand why. He wouldn’t understand that he was trying to prevent himself from doing something he’d regret; he’d only see Fili pulling away when he’s clearly asked him not to. And something like that isn’t easy for Kili to admit – he knows his brother well enough to know that.

Fili takes a deep, shaky breath and drops the cloth next to them. He doesn’t know what to say to that, what he can say to make it better. There’s a war going on inside of him, always this constant war, this constant need. It’s almost like a disease, like the gold-lust that their line is known for, this terrible need. Tonight, right here, is the first time it’s consumed him in such a way in years – the way Kili is looking at him, glassy-eyed and needy, is almost his undoing.

It hasn’t been this bad before, not since… since before. When things got too much to bear, he’d go to Thorin and it’d all go away. But there’s no escape from it now. Kili is very nearly all he has left, despite just inheriting a mountain full of riches. None of that matters, not really.

He moves forward, reaches out with shaking hands to pull Kili towards him. Kili goes without protest, hands automatically coming up to wrap around his brother’s back, latching onto him and not letting him go. Fili buries his face in Kili’s hair, smells smoke and alcohol and beneath, barely there, something that is distinctly his brother. Something that means home.

Kili has his face buried in Fili’s neck, muttering to himself – something unintelligible from what Fili can tell, though he’s distracted by the soft huff of breath against his collarbone that accompanies the muttering. When he pulls back, loosens a bit, Kili almost doesn’t want to let him go. He eventually relents because he lacks coordination, whimpering as he has to let his hands drop down to the floor as Fili patiently moves back just enough to see Kili’s face.

“I can’t—“ Kili says, taking a deep, shaking breath that must have his head spinning from the way he screws his eyes shut. “I can’t sleep right when you’re not there, Fee. ‘S too – empty. I miss you,” he repeats. Fili feels a pang at that but he forces it down, because right now this isn’t about him.

“Me either,” he says, soft, making a concentrated effort to keep his hands to himself. And it’s true, he hasn’t been sleeping well. It’s too quiet, too large for just him, and most nights he spends in an endless cycle that has him awake until he can convince himself to go to sleep again. “I don’t know what to do, Kili.”

That’s true as well. He has no idea what he’s doing anymore when he’s not in talks with his council or telling the restoration crew what to work on. Soon he’ll be dealing with the problems of his subjects, and he doubts he’ll know much of what to do there either. All of this is getting in the way of being there for Kili, which should be his job first and foremost. He shouldn’t allow Kili to be like this, should be able to sooth away all of his pain and let his brother be carefree for just a little while longer.

It stopped being a valid excuse even before Kili reached the age of majority, and it’s even less so now – his brother is an accomplished warrior, can more than take care of himself.

Except, it seems, in this.

Fili takes another deep breath, drops his head for a moment. “C’mere,” he says, and stands slowly, pulling Kili to his feet. He tries not to think about the consequences as he helps his brother across the room to the bed. There’s enough room for them both to sprawl and still be a respectable distance from each other. He sits Kili down on the edge, kneels down to undo his brother’s boots. Kili flops back onto the mattress unceremoniously, limbs sprawled every which way. Fili has to work on the buckles on Kili’s boots for a few solid minutes before they’ll yield to his shaking fingers. When that’s done, he wrangles his brother up and takes off his overcoat, rumpled and stinking of alcohol.

He drops it against a nearby chair and tries to get his brother to turn, to settle the right way on the mattress. Kili immediately turns, buries his face in the lush pillows and lets out a low sound, snuggling into the blankets. Fili sighs, works off his own boots and walks around the other side to settle himself in.

It’s going to be a long night.

*

When the morning comes, it’s not a relief. Fili nodded off sometime when the first strains of sunlight started filtering into his bedchamber, after laying awake all night listening to Kili’s even breathing and soft snores. It should be easy to fall asleep now that his brother is near again, and the soft snuffling sounds Kili makes are nearly enough to ease him into sleep at first.

But he’d be lying if he couldn’t admit that he’d missed his brother too, missed having his constant shadow. Even when Kili wasn’t talking his presence was enough of a comfort.

Next time he opens his eyes, it’s blindingly bright in the room, the sun having fully risen. No one’s come to bug him about his duties yet, so there’s that. He snuggles back down into the mattress and sighs, almost contented. And then he realizes the warm weight against his side. It’s not unpleasant, but it is alarming. It takes Fili three seconds to start worming away, trying to find a way to move from beneath Kili’s weight.

But it seems Kili’s chased him over to the side of the bed, even with all that room on the other side. And Fili distinctly remembers them sleeping on different sides of the bed, so starkly different so that this didn’t happen. He’s close enough to the edge that if he drops his arm it will be hanging off the side. Kili seems to have grown extra limbs in his sleep with how pinned Fili feels underneath him.

It’s impossible to wiggle out of Kili’s grasp when he’s like this; Fili knows this from their childhood, and Kili’s a lot bigger now. He tries anyway, tries to wriggle off the side of the bed, but when he shifts Kili just groans and clings tighter to him.

Unfortunately, Kili is also a remarkably heavy sleeper. He’s just trying to figure out how best to go about waking his brother so he can slip away when Kili stirs, makes a displeased face in his sleep and buries his face in the fabric of Fili’s shirt.

Fili makes a quick decision, manages to get his arm unpinned from under his brother. He brings it up to tangle in Kili’s hair, rubbing gently at his scalp. If anything, it’ll perhaps ease the pounding that’s bound to be there when Kili finally wakes enough to feel it. He has missed this closeness, terribly so, but the feeling is different now, and not for the first time Fili wishes he didn’t have these desires, that he and Kili could just be brothers with nothing hanging over them. Because these desires are poisonous, and they’re going to suck the life out of what is between them because they can’t take what they want.

He lets out a soft sigh as he rubs at Kili’s head, other hand coming up to rest on the arm Kili’s got thrown around him. Kili makes another soft sound and shifts, all of his limbs rearranging. Fili is still pinned to the bed beneath him, now being forced to take an elbow in the ribs or a cold foot between his calves. His brother’s hair tickles the side of his face and he tries to lean away, tries to compose himself.

Kili’s always been like this. It’s another facet of his brother that he took for granted back before they left Ered Luin. There are so many things he took for granted. Even as Kili shifts, Fili hears Thorin’s voice in his ear, telling him that he can’t. Of course, this was something he knew before Thorin told him, before his uncle pulled him away – but back then he was overconfident and didn’t really believe it.

He wonders, as he works his fingers through Kili’s hair, trying to smooth it out and retain some semblance of respectability, if Kili ever thinks about the way they were before Thorin stepped in. If he is ever kept awake at night by a need so great he can’t voice it; if he ever feels the stab of twin regret and need when he looks at Fili. A more treacherous part of himself wonders if Kili is still hanging on to that feeling, if Kili still wants what they both know they can’t have. To know his brother is as torn up about this would have Fili equal parts relieved and horrified. Kili should never have to feel the way that he feels.

Kili mutters something into his shoulder, and Fili thinks that he can perhaps make out words rather than just sleeping grumbles.

“Hm?” He asks, quiet, hoping that he doesn’t wake Kili if he isn’t already awake.

There’s a groaning sound, and Kili lifts his head just enough to see the sunlight, closing his eyes and flinching away. “I said you make a terrible pillow.” His voice is wrecked, eyes squeezed shut against the onslaught of the light. “Why am I here?”

Fili doesn’t know whether he should be relieved or not, so he settles with bringing his hand down to rub small circles into Kili’s back instead. “You were drunk,” is all he says, all he needs to say, and Kili nods, buries his face in Fili’s shirt again.

He stays still for a long while, limbs still wrapped around Fili like an over-affectionate sea monster. When he pulls away, he does so slowly, keeping his eyes squinted as he moves to his own side of the bed (or rather, the side was that supposed to be his).

“Right,” he says, breathing deep. “I’m sorry to have—I’m sorry.” Kili stands, bare feet on cold stone, and before Fili can say anything he’s lacing up his boots and throwing on his coat, moving toward the door.

Fili sits up on his elbows, still feeling the warmth of Kili pressed to his side. “You don’t have to go.”

“I do,” Kili says, casting one last look over his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.” And then he’s gone, passing by the guards without looking back. The door swings shut behind him with terribly finality, leaves Fili staring at the intricate stonework, unable to make sense of anything that just happened.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long and I'm sorry about that. I'm going to try and get this whole thing done by the time school starts in late August, because with work and 19 credit hours there is no way this is getting done. If you'll notice, I've added a chapter count; this may change, but this is the best estimation I could make. In any case, I'm sorry again for the long wait! It's been tough. 
> 
> Plus this chapter was an absolute bitch, so there's that. Thanks to ceealaina (here and on Tumblr) for her hand-holding and reading this over to tell me it wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. I'm feel-yfilifeels on tumblr if you want to come join the madness. <3

The door shuts behind Kili with a loud, startling finality. The guards to either side shuffle, switching weight from one foot to the other. He wonders if they know, if they can tell, if he smells like his brother.

Or maybe they only think they know. Is that better, or worse? Kili sways on his feet, head fuzzy and balance shot. He feels like he hasn’t slept at all. His alcohol-muddled brain thought sleeping nearer his brother would make the nights easier.

It doesn’t.

It takes him a moment to gather himself, to step around his brother’s steadfast guards and start down the hallway.

His quarters are down this way, a district set apart from the rest. This is where he stays, where his mother stays, where the rest of their immediate family would stay. In Thror’s time every room would have been filled. Now the three of them are all that remain.

Kili doesn’t want to think about that right now. He wants quiet, sleep, and an escape from what they’ve become.

It’s an escape that dreams can’t offer. Fili haunts his dreams. Gentle hands and sparkling eyes, laughter and smiles that don’t appear on his waking face any longer; these are Kili’s demons, this is what he’s trying to outrun. Somewhere deep in the King Under the Mountain his brother is buried. He thought he caught a glimpse last night, but for someone without much practice Fili has become remarkably adept at keeping himself hidden.

The worst part is he probably doesn’t even realize what he’s doing.

Kili finds the door to his rooms easily enough, pushes it open and lets it slide closed behind him. With the stone and wood between him and the rest of the world, he allows himself to slump against it, cheek pressed to cool stone and he tries to catch his breath.

What is he doing?

Whatever he thought would be okay last night clearly isn’t. Waking up in his brother’s bed is not acceptable. It’s not going to help him miss his brother less.

But no matter how much it hurts, he can’t bring himself to stop thinking about Fili. He’s entertaining thoughts he hasn’t in years, remembering what they were a long time ago. He sighs, leans back against the door. His eyes fall shut seemingly on their own, for he lacks the power to keep them open.

He wishes this want was an enemy he could face, really face, something he could put on the other side his bow and kill, arrow straight through the heart of it. But it’s living inside of him, festering there, and there is something about it that transcends any physical death he forces upon it in his mind.

Much like the sickness that gripped Thorin near the end of his life, this is a crippling disease.

And it isn’t just that Kili wants his brother, has never stopped despite Fili’s rejection all those years ago. No, that would be almost bearable if not for the need, pure and animal. He needs Fili. Perhaps one time this was nothing more than infatuation, misplaced and fixating on his perfect, golden brother.

Kili remembers how pale Fili looked on his deathbed, how the wound on his side stank like death and the whispered conversations the healers thought he couldn’t hear. He remembers gripping his brother’s hand so tightly he was afraid he’d break it, willing with every ounce of strength left in his body for him to find his way back.

He takes a deep, steadying breath, and stands. He holds onto the door for support for just a second longer before he steps away, struggles out of his overcoat weakly. There is a washbasin still steaming in this room, the strong arch cut into the back wall giving him a tantalizing glimpse at his plush, freshly-made bed.

It takes every bit of willpower he currently possesses to tell himself that he needs to wash first, can’t just collapse into the blankets and curl onto his side, close his eyes and forget last night happened. 

*

Hours later, he’s dressed in his hunting leathers, bow slung over his back next to the quiver of arrows he’s spent the past few weeks fletching. The sun is still high in the sky, still not too close to setting to discourage him from leaving. It might set before he’s able to get back, but he doesn’t care. He needs to get away, needs to get back to the woods, the flowing water of the streams around their home, the calls of the wildlife flitting between the trees.

He wants to pretend, just for a few hours, that they are home and nothing’s changed.

Kili attempts to sneak out, tries to move through less-traveled corridors. He doesn’t know the mountain all that well yet, doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to navigate it without ending up somewhere he wasn’t intending. He proves his own point when he steps into a side corridor to avoid a small group of dwarves coming his direction and nearly runs straight into his mother. She is standing in the middle of a narrow hall, clutching a torch that is nearly burned out. On the wall in front of her is a fraying tapestry.

There are a great many dwarves represented in the faded, dusty stitches. Most are wearing a stylized version of the plain armor he’s seen on the foot soldiers of the army they’re attempting to rebuild. There are a few standing apart from the rest, richer armors stitched with delicate, shining threads in colors that might once have been bright.

She doesn’t look up, just raises her hand to smooth over the old needlework. “Your grandfather,” She says, tracing the outline of one of the figures. “According to the tales, he was only a few years older than you when he won this battle.” Kili steps closer to her, watches her fingers clear dust from the threads.

Without waiting for his input, she continues, “I haven’t stitched anything more than clothes in decades, but I would see your uncles given their recognition.”

She’s talking about Azanulbizar, about the battle outside the gates of the mountain, about the vastness of her loss and what little she’s gained in return. Kili knows that these are important parts of their history, but he doesn’t want the physical reminder of any of it. It’s enough that it haunts him, the battle that took Thorin and put Fili out of his reach forever. There are nights he can’t sleep for his dreams, filled with horrible screeching and the clash of steel.

Reliving it is all the reminder he needs.

“They’ll have it,” he says, soft as he can manage. She shakes her head a little and turns to him, eyes sweeping his hunting clothes.

“Where are you going?” There’s a little crease between her eyebrows that Kili knows means she doesn’t approve, and possibly trouble if he says the wrong thing here.

He shifts his weight around, looks at the floor. “I need to get away, just for a while. I’m going to go hunting.”

She frowns. She’s trying very hard not to sigh. “Are you sure you won’t take anyone with you?”

“I just need to think.”

For a moment there’s silence, and Kili can feel her stare boring into him, trying to get him to break. Finally, she gives in, sighs and reaches up to pull him down. She plants a kiss on his forehead and says, “Please be careful.” Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Kili wonders if she can feel it, the tension that’s floating around the, tightening the air. She’s always been able to tell when something was wrong between him and Fili.

This is something he doesn’t exactly want his mother knowing about, but she can still sense the way they’re moving around each other, circling like they’re in the practice ring, waiting with ready weapons and muscles tense to bruise each other. But these weapons are so much more than the wooden ones they’re used to wielding, and when did Fili get so good at using them?

He returns her smile, weaker and even less convincing. “I always am.” She doesn’t laugh at his blatant lie, but her smile deepens into something that makes her look more like herself. Kili leaves her there, pouring over old tapestries, and doesn’t meet anyone else as he leaves the mountain.

The guards stationed at the main gate cast him sidelong glances, but they know who he is. They let him go without stopping to ask where he plans on going.

The valley in front of the mountain is empty now, barren. Only the remains of Dale linger, a pile of rubble that no one cares to clear. This is the valley where their battle was fought, the battle that made Fili king. He wonders if he were to walk down to the other side of the ruins, down to where the valley stretches on and becomes plains, if their blood would still stain the ground.

Even looking at it now he can almost hear the screeches of the eagles, the cries of the men and elves falling around them. The roaring battle-cries of the wargs pressing them into the dirt. Fili calling out to Thorin as he fell.

He doesn’t know what gets him moving again, but with great difficulty he is able to pull his eyes from the sight of their hard-won battlefield and to the west. He skirts the base of the mountain; just around the side there is a small forested area, part of a grouping of trees cut off from Mirkwood long ago by the trade roads running through and around the mountain. It’s large enough to hunt, though not as far removed as he’d have liked.

He can still see the mountain, towering, imposing. He wishes he could go far enough away that he didn’t have to see it.

The sun is low in the sky by the time he reaches the small wood. He can still see, eyes keener than most, and even if he couldn’t it feels good just to be out in the open air again, blue sky instead of dark stone above him. He feels like he can breathe out here, the smell of pine and dirt and good, fresh air. The wind rustles through the trees and the sound is beautiful to him, more beautiful in that moment than the deep singing of the dwarves or the sound of metal on metal that rings through a forge.

Kili already feels more like himself out here, more like himself than he has in a long time.

It gets darker as he stands there, and he makes quick work of gathering wood for a small fire. It chases away the chill of the night as he warms himself by it. There are crickets chirping and birds singing in the near-darkness – it feels good to be alone for a while. It’s a foreign feeling. He’s always enjoyed Fili’s company more than being completely alone.

Before the quest, he and Fili were nearly never apart. There was a time when it was impossible to separate them, but age, necessity, and Thorin’s insistence kept them apart more frequently as the years wore on. This was especially true after Thorin found out about the way they were enjoying each other.

It didn’t take very long for him to find out; looking back, Kili realizes they weren’t all that subtle about it. But as soon as he did, he took Fili away on one of his trips to the nearby towns of men. They were gone for months. Working at a blacksmith’s shop there, Fili told him when they returned.

But Fili began spending more time assisting their uncle and less indulging Kili. They still shared a room, but Fili kept to his own bed and after a few weeks Kili stopped trying to join him there. It took months but they remembered how to move around each other again, how to exist as just brothers.

As much as he wants, as much as he can’t stop thinking about it, he has to let it go. Fili doesn’t want him like that anymore, and it was wrong to begin with; now he has duties and a kingdom to run, an image to maintain, and Kili’s not going to ruin that for him, he’s not.

No matter how much he wants to.

Kili sets up his small fire, sheds his weapons and his overcoat and sits on the forest floor, shuffling closer until he’s within the little circle of heat. Tomorrow he’ll hunt. Hopefully it will be longer than that before they start looking for him. 

  
*

The sun is just starting to turn the sky a deep, dusky pink when Kili wakes. The fire has burned down to cinders, and there’s a kink in his back from sleeping on the ground. Still, he feels better than he has in a while, more alive and at home than in his large chambers and plush bed.

He starts the day quickly and efficiently. Before the sun has fully risen, world still pale and quiet, he’s picking his way through the underbrush, bow raised and ready. The creatures of the forest are just starting to stir again, making their way out of their dens. He nabs a rabbit as it’s scuttling through the underbrush and takes it back to his makeshift camp, skins it and roasts it over the newly-stoked fire.

It’s incredibly nice just to have this, to have no pressure from anyone for once. Before, he’d be going crazy with the need to talk to someone, but such isn’t the case anymore; he’s glad for his own company. There have been too many people around for far too long.

As he’s sitting there on the ground, fire crackling as he finishes off the last of his rabbit, there’s suddenly a cacophony of sound rising up behind him. He jumps, and in the time it takes him to grab for his bow and set an arrow, there is a cloud of black rising from the tops of the trees.

His hands don’t shake on the string but his heart is thundering in his ears. Curiously enough, it looks like a dense thundercloud, but when he squints just a little he can see smaller movements within it, almost like wings. There’s a terrible squawking sound that accompanies the movement. The moment that it hovers there is long enough for Kili to shoot into the dense black.

The first shot yields no results, except to make the squawking louder. The cloud of what must be birds begins to retreat, and before they can get out of his range he shoots again. For a moment he watches, thinks maybe he’s missed again, but then a smaller shadow breaks free of the larger, falling into the trees a ways from where he stands.

He lowers his bow, watches the cloud of black slowly moving south, against the wind. The squawking echoes back at him long after it should have faded.

It takes the remainder of the morning to pick through the dense underbrush to find the creature.

 

 

Kili finds the end of his arrow sticking out of the wing of something that can scarcely be called a bird. From the neck down the only indicator that it might not be is the state of its feathers; they’re ragged, holes torn in feathers that should be downy but feel coarse to the touch.

Birds are supposed to have delicate, fragile bones. He’s seen them, snapped them in his hands to ensure that the animal couldn’t feel anymore. This bird has a skull for a head, deep eye sockets empty and unnerving. Its beak is bone, longer than it should be and sharp at the end; Kili runs his fingers over it and they come away bloody.

On all their travels, all the places they’ve been, he’s never seen anything like this.

There is a distant rumble of thunder, ominous and still too far off to be any real threat. The promise of rain gets him moving; he makes a split-second decision and sheds his traveling cloak. He wraps it tightly around the bird-creature, taking hold of its spiny legs through the thick cloth. He will take it back to the mountain and hopefully someone there will know about it. He almost feels ridiculous for feeling so strongly unnerved by a creature that might as well be normal in these parts, but some strong feeling in the pit of his stomach is urging him on and won’t let him dismiss it.

The sky opens before he reaches the edge of the small forest; lightning cracks across the dense clouds, followed shortly by ground-shaking thunder. He emerges from beneath the trees as it starts to rain in earnest, a freezing, soaking rain that reminds him just how far he has to go before reaching the mountain.

Soon his hair is soaked through, sets him shivering as the wet strands of it stick to his neck and somehow end up pressing against his bare skin under all of his layers. There is a moment’s respite under the giant statues flanking Erebor’s front gate. Kili rests there for a moment, shivering and trying to fight back the chill that’s settling into his bones.

The guards don’t question his return, though he must look a mess. He wants to get rid of the creature he’s carrying as quickly as possible; he leaves a trail of mud and rainwater in his wake as he traveled through the passages to the council hall, where he will no doubt find his brother and anyone else that might be helpful. The creature is unnerving in more senses than just the way it looks. The feel of it so close makes his skin crawl.

The council hall is filled with his brother’s advisors, and Fili looks magnificently regal seated at the head of the table, listening to a heavily-braided dwarf further down deliver his proposal for whatever issue is being brought up today. He looks nothing like his brother. He looks entirely untouchable.

Kili watches for a handful of seconds before the unease caused by the bundle he’s holding creeps back, and he strides forward as the dwarf speaking finishes his piece. The fact that he is dripping on the floor of the main council chambers pulls raised eyebrows from the councilmen in all of their finery.

He remembers to bow at the last moment. There is silence in the chamber, all eyes watching him. It adds to the unease working up his spine, and when he straightens again he tries to disguise the small shudder that runs through him. They’re watching him expectantly.

“Fi— my King, Lord Balin. I’d like a word.” Kili looks past the assembled dwarves and straight to the head of the table. Fili watches him closely for a moment. He only breaks eye contact for a moment to look to his left. He exchanges a small nod with Balin, and then with the wider council. The councilmen begin to stand, filing out of the chamber without a word or a glance in Kili’s direction.

The last out closes the heavy door behind him, and Kili can’t look away from Fili’s eyes watching him. They’re stuck at stalemate for a long time, neither of them willing to break eye contact. Balin clears his throat, gives Kili a pointed look that he registers from the corner of his eye, and Fili is the first to look away. His eyes flit down to the bundle Kili’s carrying.

“Where’ve you been?” is the first thing he says, unexpected, and for a moment Kili is taken aback.

“Hunting,” he says, looking down at the top of the table. There’s a small rush of gratitude toward his mother for not telling Fili. He’s not a child and doesn’t need to be ashamed of his actions, yet there’s a part of him that feels guilty all the same.

He moves forward, down the long table. As he approaches the other end, he sets his cloaked bundle down in front of them. The sodden cloak is slow to fall open around the dead bird. The moment the coarse feathers emerge, Kili watches them, watches the shudders they’re trying to suppress. This thing has some sort of bizarre power, and it doesn’t just affect Kili.

“There was a flock of them in the wood near the south slope. They took flight, and from a distance it looked like a thundercloud. And the noise – these are no normal birds.”

“I can see that,” Fili says, tugging at the edge of the cloak. It leaves a wet streak across the table when he pulls it, bringing it closer to him. He touches the feathers, brings his hand away almost immediately afterwards. “Balin?”

Balin is silent for long moments. He runs his fingers over the bone of the skull, over the curve of the empty eye socket. “Creatures such as this haven’t been seen in the world in a long time,” he says heavily, removing his hand hesitantly. “I’ll need to consult my books. But I know for certain that whatever this may be, it isn’t a good sign.”

“It feels… wrong,” Kili says, taking a small step away from the table. The sooner he can be out of the room the better off he’ll be.

“Indeed,” Balin breathes, and looks to Fili. “I would take leave of the council for today. This may seem minor, but it doesn’t bode well.”

Fili looks like he’s nursing a spectacular headache; he’s got that pinched look about him that Kili knows all too well. He pushes his grand chair out and stands, gripping the edge of the table. “It’s just as well. I don’t think I can listen to another speech.” He rolls his shoulders, heavy robes not making it any easier to move, and Kili tears his eyes away, wants nothing more than to run back out into the rain and away.

Being this close is almost a physical ache. Kili makes a last minute decision to follow his brother from the council chamber, trailing after him and leaving Balin with the bird-beast. Just being away from it makes him feel more at ease. He takes a few long strides to catch up to Fili.

He looks tired. Like he hasn’t been sleeping properly, like he hasn’t been eating enough. It’s never been his place to look after Fili, not least of all because Fili’s always the one doing the looking after. There’s something settling under Kili’s ribs that urges him to do something about this, but he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know if Fili would even let him anymore.

They walk in silence for a while. The council chamber is surprisingly far from the part of the city where they live; they walk on staggered, raised pathways that crisscross the yawning cavern that makes up the middle of the mountain. The dwarves that make up the new population of the mountain are everywhere, wandering through markets, running errands. It’s a welcome sight. Kili looks over to find his brother’s eyes firmly set on the stone of the walkway. He wonders if Fili still superimposes the look of the ruined city over the repaired version, if he still thinks about how bad it was.

But there’s a more curious part of Kili that wonders if it’s affecting his brother the way it’s affecting him. Kili can’t stop thinking about it; the way the city looked, the call of the eagles over the battlefield in the valley, the stench of dragon. These are things that keep him awake at night, make him wake to cold sweat and blankets constricting him.

Something stops him from asking. It might be the notion that Fili might lie about it; kings aren’t supposed to show fear, even behind closed doors. And perhaps Fili was taking his appointment too seriously, was too dedicated to it. The mask never slipped, at least not that Kili had seen. This is what will make him a good king.

Kili is slowly coming to realize that he’d prefer having a worse king if it meant having just a tiny bit of Fili back, all to himself.

As they make their way through the city, flanked by Fili’s guards and utterly silent, Kili keeps his eyes fixed ahead. He looks anywhere he can because he can’t stand that hollow look, wonders what it might take to permanently get rid of it.

When they are in more private corridors, Fili finally speaks. “You were out hunting?”

It takes Kili’s mind a moment to register that it’s a question. He notices, absently, that his wet clothes are sticking to him when he moves and feels just a little guiltier for showing up in such a mess. “Yes.” He can’t think of what else to say, doesn’t know if he needs to justify himself and doesn’t really want to.

“There’s no need. There’s plenty of meat in the larders to keep us all fed and then some.”

Kili knows this. He knows about the treaty they’ve recently struck with lands to the south and the west, trading ore, stone and gems for food and textiles they can’t produce themselves. “That’s not – clears my head, is all.” He says, eyes on the path in front of them.

“I just want you to be careful,” Fili says, stopping in front of the heavy doors to his chambers. “If you’re going to go, at least take someone with you.”

When Kili looks up, his brother is looking away. There is a single person in all of Erebor that Kili would consider taking with him, and there are so many ways that wouldn’t work out. He tries not to look too unhappy about this, bows low to hide the frown he can’t get off of his face.

“As you wish, my lord.” It comes out more spiteful than he’d counted on, and for a moment Kili stays there, eyes fixed on the floor. When he rises, he immediately turns and heads down the corridor to his own chambers, leaving Fili without another word. He’s not angry, not really, though there is a part of him that resents the fact that he’s now been told twice he needs babysitting. Has he not proven himself?

“Kili,” Fili calls out for him, and Kili grits his teeth and keeps moving, doesn’t look back. 

*

That night, he dreams. It’s not a dream of war, death and steel and red, red blood. He does not dream of dragons and gold.

He dreams of the first time he kissed Fili.

In a way, it’s worse than the war dreams. The war dreams eventually leave him; he is shaken, but he is whole. But remembering this when he’s trying so hard to push it away leaves him far worse off.

It’s a cold night when he first kisses his brother. The snow is piled to the bottoms of the windows of their small house. He is the only one home when the storm hits; Dwalin dismissed him from his training early when the snow clouds started rolling in, told him to get a fire going for the rest of the family.

He stokes the fire for a long time, picking the biggest logs from the stack near the hearth. By the time he’s been home an hour the snow is falling fast and hard, and the fire is crackling away merrily. The small circle of warmth it affords is well worth the work he put into it. He watches it, content to sit in the warmth and watch the snow fall as the adrenaline rush of a sword in his hand drains from his muscles.

The wind is roaring by the windows, snow blowing and making it nearly impossible to see. When Kili goes to the window he only sees small imprints of light from the other houses near them. The worse it gets the worse he worries; his mother might well be helping out the neighbors, but Fili should have come home from the forge a while ago.

The door opens, and Fili nearly falls into the house with a rush of wind and swirling snow, almost as if he’s been summoned. Kili immediately bounds across the small living room to help him out of his soaked outer layers.

When that’s done, both of them in dry clothes, they settle in front of the fire.

“I met mother on the way,” Fili tells him, retrieving his pipe and attempting to light it with shaking, frozen fingers. “She’s helping—whatshername, with all the children down the row. She might not be home tonight. They’ve all got terrible colds.”

“Just as well. She shouldn’t try and brave the storm,” Kili says absently, moving close to Fili’s side. It’s warm enough in the house but his brother is cold, cold enough to still be quaking slightly. He wants to be closer still but doesn’t trust himself, his body or his unwelcome impulses. This is close enough.

They sit in silence for a moment. When Fili finally stops shivering, inhaling long and low on his pipe, Kili doesn’t move away. The smoke hazes around them, and Kili’s fingers itch for his own pipe. Unfortunately, that would mean leaving his brother’s side and their warmth. After a moment, he settles for plucking Fili’s from his fingers as he’s exhaling, and taking a long puff before his brother can complain about it.

“Oi,” Fili says, indignant, and reaches to take it back. Kili raises it out of his reach, fully employing his height advantage. Fili narrows his eyes and leans over him, fingers reaching as though if he stretches them enough he’ll be able to make the last few inches without actually having to fall on top of his brother.

Much to Kili’s delight (and partial mortification), his plan succeeds and Fili overbalances, pushing Kili over onto his side when he can’t properly reach his stolen pipe. They go down laughing. Kili blows smoke in his brother’s face and Fili curses at him in Khuzdul.

They stay like that for long moments. Eventually Kili puts the pipe up to Fili’s lips so he can inhale, before he takes a long pull from it himself. It’s comfortable, Fili spread over him like this, and the way that Fili shifts and makes himself comfortable tells Kili that he feels similarly. Between them, sprawled on the floor in front of the fire, they manage to finish off one bowlful of the sweet leaf Fili is so fond of. The pipe ends up lying on the rug next to them when its embers are spent, something that their mother would surely not approve of.

Kili looks up at his brother, at his half-lidded eyes and lazy grin. He isn’t feeling all that aware and awake himself; the silence of the snowy evening outside and the crackling of the fire settles into his bones, the warmth of it seeping into his muscles and making him tired. He closes his eyes for a half second and wakes to the sky outside fully dark and Fili still spread on top of him, dead weight now that he’s dozing.

It takes exactly thirty seconds for Kili to realize what’s going on, another five to understand he can’t wiggle away. When he gives up, he cards his fingers through Fili’s hair absently, for lack of anything else to do. Fili makes a small sound and leans into him, appreciative of the attention, and Kili is trying so hard to clear his mind but it’s not working, and that noise sets off little sparks all through him.

Fili shifts and Kili chokes off the sound that threatens to tear from his throat. No, this can’t… he needs to get away.

But he clearly can’t, not without drawing attention to himself. And Fili looks so beautiful like this, firelight glancing off the planes of his face, relaxed in sleep. Kili can stand to just look for a little while longer.

Except that’s not at all what he wants to do. Kili doesn’t want to just look, and he doesn’t know if there was a time when that’s all he wanted from his brother. Things have gotten confusing lately. It used to be so easy, and now every moment spent with his brother is a sweet, secret torture that is Kili’s alone to bear.

Maybe if he… satisfies his urges? Maybe just now, when they’re both hazy and sleepy, he can get away with it?

Fili stirs, frowning in his sleep. Kili contorts his neck, tilts Fili’s head up with the hold he has in his hair.

It takes all of three seconds for Kili to decide to leap, and just as he leans in, breath ghosting across his brother’s mouth, Fili’s eyes flutter open. But Kili doesn’t have time to stop himself, already on his way to damnation. It isn’t even a proper kiss; their lips brush, smooth skin on smooth skin, and something in Kili’s chest jolts and swells at the contact.

Fili sputters and pulls his head back, one hand coming to rest against his mouth as he looks down at Kili, confused and still half-asleep. “Kee?” he asks, blinking.

Kili thinks he might be a brilliant shade of red. “I’m sorry, I just. I was dreaming and—“

But before he can flee, make excuses and hide somewhere, Fili’s overcome his confusion and is pressing him down onto the floor. Fili catches his mouth open, halfway through a sputtered-out apology, and whatever Kili was about to say is drowned out by a long, low sound that falls between their mouths.

There is a moment of hesitation before Fili presses, a moment more before it becomes a proper kiss, and Kili’s sound is met by something he never thought he’d be blessed enough to hear. Perhaps half a second is wasted by panic, by the thought that this is Fili and what if it ruins everything? This is followed swiftly by the thought of his lack of experience, and what if Fili doesn’t think he’s good enough to continue kissing?

This proves to be an empty fear, because Fili kisses him for a good long while. They break apart for air, and an insane laugh bubbles up in Kili’s throat. It hits him just as he’s leaning up to kiss his brother again, and then they’re laughing, soft huffing that gets trapped between them and becomes soft sounds of approval.

It’s a good thing Dis is staying with the woman down the row. It’s a good thing Thorin is out of town. It’s a good thing that there’s a storm raging outside and a fire beside them, because this is how Kili always hoped it would be; slow and private, warm and so, so good.

When they finally break apart, Kili brings his fingers up to touch his mouth, reveling in the tingling, almost raw feeling. Fili sits up, resumes the spot he was occupying before Kili stole his pipe, and reaches for it where it lays on the carpet.

Kili watches him through half-lidded e yes for a few seconds, not daring to believe this is okay. Fili’s hands are shaking where they grip the bowl, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor.

They sit in silence, passing Fili’s pipe between them.

They don’t talk about it that night.  

They don’t talk about it the night after, or the night after that, or the night after that when Kili finds himself stretched on top of his brother, locked in a furious battle of wills and tongues and teeth, trying to keep their sounds between themselves as to not alert their mother.

They don’t talk about it in the following months. They don’t talk about it when Kili finds himself sleeping in Fili’s bed instead of his own, sticky and spent.

They don’t ever talk about it.

Kili wakes in the middle of the night, sits up in bed and buries his head in his hands. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are arguments and nothing is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh jesus. So you know how I said I wanted to get this done before school started? Yeah... I don't think anyone's surprised that didn't pan out. But here, have some angst. *throws glitter* 
> 
> As always, I'm feel-yfilifeels on Tumblr. Come join the madness.

Kili spends most of the next few weeks resolutely avoiding his brother. It doesn’t take any effort at all, really; Fili’s status guarantees that he is never alone. And even when it’s been close, Kili’s been able to escape only by virtue of the fact that Fili’s guard makes sure his presence is always announced.

He goes to places Fili wouldn’t anymore, the markets and the pubs of the lower levels of the city. It’s unbefitting his own status as heir, but Kili’s smoothed the braids out of his hair and most of their people only have a vague idea what he looks like. He gets by almost anonymously.

There is a certain peace to it. 

He spends approximately two days in his rooms, where he’s expected to be. The following nights are spent at a different tavern of choice every few days. Between changing taverns he goes back to his rooms briefly to assure that no one comes looking for him, that they know he’s alive and doesn’t want to be bothered. It’s so much easier to give up and pretend to be someone else for a while.

It takes nearly a fortnight for anyone to acknowledge that Kili’s making himself scarce. As he approaches his rooms, he feels the stress he’s been trying to drain away flooding back, settling between his shoulder blades like a rock. It’s almost a physical pain, but rolling his shoulders does nothing to alleviate it.

There’s only so long this can go on. At some point he’ll have to face whatever’s going on – whatever Fili has planned for him, or doesn’t. He’ll have to confront his brother about it. The longer he goes at this, acting like he isn’t who he is and avoiding thinking about the real issues he should be facing, the more paranoid he becomes. That moment seems to be inching on him the longer he tries not to think about it.

Kili closes his door quietly, heavily, behind him. His rooms are deafeningly silent after the sounds of the city and the near-constant noise of the taverns he’s been frequenting. His footsteps echo back at him as he crosses the room; the creak of the chair at his desk when he sits to remove his boots is amplified tenfold.

He relaxes into the ornate back of the chair, huffing a little to break the silence for half a second. His eyes fall on a roll of parchment sitting innocently in the middle of his ill-used desk. It’s unbound, nothing keeping it rolled but the heavy wax holding the end pieces together. The seal pressed into the wax is Fili’s, the stylized crown that had always been his.

It takes Kili a few seconds of blinking at it to realize what it is; he’s had little sleep lately. When he does realize what he’s looking at, he reaches out slowly, as if it might burn him.

It’s a request for his presence. It isn’t a meeting; outside the normal council times, and Kili hasn’t been allowed in those meetings since Fili’s title was official. Kili has been named heir, but the ceremony hasn’t been performed. Perhaps Fili hasn’t had the time to worry about something that is so blatantly accepted, but Kili wishes they could get it over with. Attending the meetings would give him something to do. He’d have a purpose.

No, this is a personal request. It stings just a bit that Fili would have to use official channels to talk to him; Kili is only willing to take half the blame. He hasn’t exactly made himself available, but this summons is the first real effort Fili’s made to speak to him.

Kili reads the words over and over. It sounds so formal, so unlike his brother. The words are his, the script is his, but it feels wrong otherwise. The longer he reads, the angrier he gets. It’s a simple request, but something about it sets his teeth on edge.

He’s been trying for weeks to speak to Fili, to do anything more than snap at him, to get more time alone to practice not being frustrated with him. And for all his efforts, all Fili has to do is send a marked note and he expects to get what he wants?

It’s a petty thing to do. It could be important. It could be exactly what he’s wanted, exactly what he’s been looking for. But Kili rerolls the parchment and stuffs it away in a drawer. He doesn’t have any intention of heeding the summons. Fili can be the one left waiting this time.

~

Half the night is spent in his own bed, making certain that it's clear he's sleeping in it. Kili wakes before the sun and is unable to find his way back to sleep again. By the time the sun has risen, light slowly filtering down through the complicated system of shafts and mirrors, Kili is itching to get away. He's tired, but most of all afraid of getting caught, of having to face Fili. 

To be perfectly honest, he doesn't even know why they're still doing this. Any other instance would have one of them breaking down and giving up the fight in favor of everything being okay between them. But things have changed so much. Even if this meeting is Fili attempting to concede, Kili can't bring himself to go.

They will need to solve this. But right now Kili is enjoying allowing things to be uncomplicated. No matter how much he misses his brother, the easy camaraderie and constant companionship, he can't give in just yet. 

Circumstance has forced them to become separate entities. But the crown is hardly the only thing keeping them apart; there is something larger and far more imposing lurking in the forced silence between them. 

They will have to talk about it. Kili just isn't quite ready to have that conversation. The longer they wait the less ready he becomes. 

When it finally becomes an acceptable time to slip out and away, Kili wastes no time. The markets of the lower city will be bustling today. Down here, the wares the merchants sell are more useful than frivolous; the trinkets, toys, and jewelry of the city proper phase out and are replaced with clothing and cooking vessels.

He manages to make it down without being seen. The first stalls are beginning to open, and Kili walks around, exchanging greetings with the merchants and examining the wares they have set out. As the row begins to fill with people, Kili finds it easy to get lost in the crowd, to fade into the press of people and forget that he's keeping Fili waiting somewhere far above. 

~

Fili knows that getting Kili here is a vain hope, but it doesn't stop him from hoping. 

He chooses one of the smaller council chambers because it is less suspicious. He can pretend that he's asking Kili here on an official matter and then maybe, just maybe, he'll show up. Of course, there's the very real risk that Kili will see right through him. He hasn't been invited to any of the many council meetings that have been taking place since Fili became King. It's something he wants to fix, but he finds himself unable to with Kili avoiding him. 

It's not entirely true; there was plenty of time to officiate Kili before he was being avoided. He hesitated, the weight of everything else seeming too large, a burden he didn't want to push off on anyone (least of all his brother). He wanted Kili to be carefree just for a little while longer. 

He should have seen that Kili hadn't been carefree for a single moment since they retook the mountain. He hadn't been at ease since Thorin was laid to rest. And now Fili's made it worse by isolating him when he should have been taking care of him, regardless of age or previous obligation. 

They are too young to have seen so much. He knew how badly Kili was affected when he was ill, when Kili would hardly talk or move from his side. And he didn't know what to do about it, so he didn't do anything.

The guilt of it is eating him alive. 

It only gets worse as time drags on. Kili doesn't show up. Every time there are footsteps in the hall outside Fili looks up, expecting his brother to shuffle into the room, but the footsteps pass and Kili is nowhere to be found. 

It becomes clear after the first hour that he's not going to show up, but Fili waits.  He waits until it's painfully obvious that Kili's not coming. The light's started to fade a little, the sun having passed overhead a while ago. There are other things he could be tending to, other things he should be supervising, but he can't bring himself to leave.

Fili knows that if he could just get his brother here, talk to him for a little while, they could resolve whatever it is that’s between them. It’d be far easier and far braver than what they’re doing now. And really, it’s what Kili’s doing that’s coming between them. His avoidance is worse than any words they could have exchanged in anger.

But apparently that isn’t going to work. He’s set aside most of the day to talk to his brother, set it aside just for him, and he’s not going to waste it.

It takes a bit of maneuvering to get it done. He manages to slip back to his chambers without being intercepted and sheds his heavy, rich clothing.

It’s probably not the smartest thing to do, but there’s something in the back of his mind telling him that it’s what needs to be done.

~

By midday, Kili is settling down in his favorite room in his favorite tavern. The crowds in the market were thinning, and he’d completed three whole passes of the row before he realized he wasn’t looking at the wares any longer, that he was focused more on the stone beneath his feet and his own thoughts.

He spends the rest of the day dozing, safe now that he is anonymous again, and fletching what arrows he can from the supplies he’d purchased at market. They are far from the best quality, but Kili likes the distraction. It is something he can do purely mechanically. He doesn’t have to think about the process so he doesn’t have to worry about his thoughts wandering down unwanted paths.

The room is dimming by the time he makes his way down to the common room. Before it was nearly empty, and now there is hardly a chair unused. There’s a healthy haze of pipe smoke clinging to the ceiling, and a roaring fire in the hearth. For a moment he considers going back up to his room, but lingering there on the stairs, he realizes that he’s probably spent too much time alone already today. Socializing will do him some good, and more good than bad.

So he plasters his best, biggest grin on his face and enters the fray of people.

~

It’s a few hours and several pints later when Kili finally notices the feeling of eyes on him. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s been feeling it for a while, an itching under his skin that settles right between his shoulder blades. He continues laughing and talking to the dwarves around him, none of which have any idea who he is, and hopes it will pass.

It doesn’t.

By the time the patrons are thinning out, most of them heading home with the help of their far less inebriated friends and relations, the feeling hasn’t passed. If anything, it’s only settled, pressed deeper into his skin until it’s crawling with it. He’s been scanning the room all night, trying to find the person whose eyes he feels so heavily on him, but there were too many people around.

Now, with so few, Kili follows the feeling to a dark booth in the far corner, single occupant with a dark hood pulled up to shadow his face. He’s pulling at his pipe, drawing large lungfuls of smoke in and blowing them out again, delicate, spidery rings floating up to the ceiling. Something about the motion strikes him as entirely too familiar; it takes a split second for the recognition to catch him.

The rings slowly rising to the dark ceiling are the same that his brother was so proud of being able to produce. He’d spent weeks back before the journey perfecting the right way to hollow his cheeks, just how to blow out to form them.

They were weeks of perpetual frustration for Kili.

Suddenly, he’s standing, throwing his coin on the table and moving toward the booth in the corner. He tries to look menacing, but mostly he just aches; he didn’t count on seeing Fili today, had made up his mind that it wasn’t going to happen. There is a certain amount of posturing that has to go into his interactions with his brother now, and he hasn’t had the proper time to prepare for it.

Kili is angry. Not because he’s been followed, or because Fili thought to chase after him when he clearly wanted to be left alone. He’s angry because Fili can’t do things like this anymore. He can’t move about as he wishes. Though there are very few in the city that would bear him any ill will, it isn’t safe for him to be out without his guard. Fili can take care of himself; it’s common knowledge, but Kili can’t help feeling at his side for the knife he keeps there, relieved to find it secure.

If Fili got himself assassinated while chasing him down, Kili would never forgive himself.

“What are you doing?” Kili hisses as he slides into the booth opposite his brother. For a long moment Fili is silent, takes another puff off his pipe and breathes out in those delicate smoke rings. He leans forward, letting the hood fall back enough that Kili can see his eyes, tired and too-bright.

“We need to talk,” is what he finally says, voice hoarse, low so they won’t be overheard.

Kili wants to agree, but it would acknowledge his willingness to actually have this conversation, and it’s definitely not something he wants to face right now, too much drink and uncertainty bubbling up inside.

“Upstairs,” he replies, averting his eyes. If Fili came all the way down to the lower districts to talk to him, Kili has no choice but to agree. And perhaps without his title hanging over them, without the crown, it’ll be easier to pretend that everything is okay again.

His legs feel like they’re made of stone as he follows Fili across the room and up the stairs. 

Kili should have known it wouldn’t last long. And coming here was a mistake; this was the tavern closest to the markets, and he remembered telling Fili about it all those weeks ago when he stumbled into his brother’s rooms. There is a part of him, a part that’s growing more influential by the second, which resents being treated like a child about to be scolded for breaking a vase. The issue here is much bigger than something as innocent as broken pottery; here it means everything if he messes it up.

Fili stops in the hall right at the top of the stairs, shoulders stiff. “Just here,” Kili supplies when he doesn’t move, steps around him and squeezes past to the door to his rented room. He fumbles with the large key and finally fits it into the door, turning the handle until it clicks.

Inside, the room is dark. Kili busies himself with lighting a lamp and clearing his fletching materials from the cover on the small, rickety bed so he doesn’t have to look at Fili. Tension settles on the room, a thick, impenetrable blanket. Neither of them knows where to start.

When Kili has run out of things to do around the room, he stands uselessly by the small window overlooking the market square. He finally grits his teeth and looks up at Fili; he’s shed his heavy cloak, and stands near the door in his old traveling clothes.

First, Kili is amazed that he’s kept them. If he looks long enough, eyes raking over the familiar overcoat, he can see the place it’s been mended, the darker leather stretched over the place where the orc that nearly took Fili’s life slashed through to the skin beneath.

Standing there, Fili looks like himself. There is almost nothing left of the King in him; it’s funny how just changing out of his regal clothes, leaving his crown in his rooms, can transform his entire being so effortlessly. He even carries himself differently, all of his royal bearing shed as effortlessly as the cloak meant to hide his identity.

Kili’s fingers itch to reach out, run his fingers through the coarse fur that lines Fili’s coat.  He stops himself, barely, leans back against the wall. He tries for casual and doesn’t know if he manages it.

He feels like something heavy’s hit him square in the chest, knocked all the air out of him. He’d given up ever seeing Fili like this again. His hair is longer, eyes more tired than Kili’s ever seen them before. Other than these small changes, it would be easy to mistake this Fili for the one Kili wants him to be.

Fili clears his throat, says “Kili” almost too quiet to hear, takes half a step into the room.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Kili says without thinking about what he’s saying. He’s referring to the danger, to what could happen to him, but from the look on Fili’s face that isn’t at all how it came across. “I just mean—“

“Neither should you.” Fili crosses his arms over his chest. “You shouldn’t be hiding, Kili. If you’d just—“ He stops, like he doesn’t actually have an end to that sentiment, like he doesn’t know how to fix it after all.

Irrationally, Kili feels his temper flare. “If I’d just what? What do you expect me to do, Fili? I’m not important. This is the best way I have to occupy my time,” he spits out, more vicious than he intends.  

“No. You’re running.”

Kili can’t argue with that, even though he wants to. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s been just fine doing it. If he’s just a little hollow, it’s hardly his fault. Fili doesn’t wait for him to protest. “Do you hate this place so much that it’s easier for you to run than face what’s expected of you?”

There’s a deeper question hidden there, something Fili would never ask outright. Kili wants to answer that question even less than he wants to answer the one he’s being presented with.

“It might be easier if I knew what was expected of me,” he mutters, mostly to himself. He really wasn’t prepared for this. Alcohol is making his mind lazy, and he can’t figure out what he should say, how to phrase things so he gets his point across.

Fili is silent for a long moment, and Kili would like to believe that he’s working out exactly why Kili would feel this way. It’s more likely that he’s nursing a violent headache and doesn’t want to deal with any of this, even less than Kili does. After all, Kili’s only spent all day fletching arrows and walking through the market. Fili’s been keeping the kingdom from falling apart.

There’s a momentary pang of guilt, a wish that he could shoulder at least some of that burden (it’s supposed to be his function, to take care of things Fili is incapable of dealing with), but Fili’s taken the responsibility of the entire kingdom on his shoulders.

“You are not meant to bear this alone,” Kili says, quiet, though he can’t recall making a conscious decision to say anything.

The silence says everything Fili isn’t; the way he draws himself up, squares his shoulders. “I am,” he says. “It is my burden.”

Kili huffs. Again, he is dismissed. “You are not the only remaining heir.”

Fili takes a moment to deliberate. “Kili,” he says on a sigh. “I wouldn’t wish to make you carry even a fraction of this weight.”

“I’m not a child,” Kili says, too loudly, before Fili’s even finished his sentence. “There is some task I can overlook, surely.”

The look that crosses Fili’s face is somehow darker than expected. “You say you’re not a child, and yet you continue to run like one. It would be easier to assess what you’d be capable of if you would stay in the upper city for more than a few hours at a time.”

Kili steps forward, drawing himself up to his full height. “And I didn’t make this decision. If you’d stop pushing me away—“

That’s what it comes down to, something ugly and treacherous that he didn’t mean to say, not really. Truthfully it’s not all Fili’s fault, though he certainly didn’t help the situation by acting as he did. Even as they stand there, space between them shortening as their voices grow louder, Kili feels his brother’s hesitation, feels the urge to step around him and find another inn to bed down in for the night, for a moment to calm down before he continues to spit out things he never wants to say.

Fili lets out a short, mirthless laugh and looks down at the wooden floor. “This is me not pushing you away. Come back with me, Kili. I’d like this stalemate to be over, if it’s all the same to you. There are a few things I have in mind if you’re up for it.”

Kili is slightly taken aback, eyeing his brother’s downturned face speculatively. Truthfully, Kili’s always been more stubborn. It’s only on rare occasions that neither of them backs down. He didn’t expect Fili to give up so easily, to let all the accusations drop. Perhaps he recognized the truth in them?

The reasoning isn’t important. The fact is, Fili is offering him what he’s been wanting since the coronation ceremony. He wants to be useful, not kept locked away like a prize. This seems an easy compromise, if not suspiciously easily won. But Kili’s gotten used to being here, to hiding in plain sight amongst the people.

It isn’t his place, not really, and maybe that makes it all the sweeter.

Still, Kili gives in to his dutiful urges in the end. He packs up the things he’s brought with him, tips the innkeeper on the way out. He tries not to be too hopeful about this compromise, but he can’t help the small flare of pride and happiness as he walks back through the city with his brother at his side.

~

There is a moment when he wakes where Kili doesn't recognize the thin gold webbing spread across the ceiling above his bed, where he doesn't remember getting here. When understanding floods back, he takes a shaky breath and sits up.  
  
It's fairly early, earlier than he's been rising lately. If they were on the surface, there would be blinding bright morning light cutting through the windows. Here, everything is dark, but it's easy to remember this time of day, birds singing and the happy sounds of inexhaustible children at play.  
  
A few moments of sitting there have him more alert. It doesn't take all that much effort to leave his bed, flit around his room and find the necessary clothes. Today, he will sit in on his first meeting since Fili was crowned.  
  
It's not really an important matter; setting up the trade routes that will exist when Bard begins rebuilding and resettling Dale. The heaping pile of rubble has already begun to be cleared away. Men have come with their large draft horses and attached carts, loaded up the broken, rotting wood and carried it to the south.  
  
Soon enough, the city will be resettled. Perhaps one day they can glimpse what it might have looked like before Smaug, before the fire and destruction.  
  
The only thing Kili actually cares about concerning Dale is that they cover the battlefield. Most would make it into a monument (though the dwarves in the mountain seem set against this idea, men are more sentimental). Kili would see it covered and forgotten about. Every trip to the surface doesn't need to be a constant reminder of what was lost that day in the numbing chaos of battle.  
  
It's a small meeting; the only emissaries that Bard has sent are a few men previously of Laketown and his son, still young by the standard of men.  
  
There are no lengthy debates. It's a simple matter to agree on commerce, especially where none previously exists, and especially when their people agree so effortlessly with each other.  
  
It is a relatively quick and painless meeting, over surprisingly fast. A few of the emissaries have never been to the mountain before, so Fili calls for guides to take them through the city and show them how well the restoration effort has gone. It's been months since they started renovations, and the fruits of their labor have finally reached completion.  
  
When the meeting is over and the men gone off with their guides for a tour, Kili escapes to go down to the practice arena. There won't be another meeting for a few hours, and in the meantime Fili is only going to be answering various missives from their allies. This is something he can miss.  
  
So he goes back to his room to grab his gear, heads down to the lower west wing, where the barracks are housed. The archery training field is small compared to the rest of the area. Dwarves are not known for their skill with a bow, and there are only a select few (like Kili) who favor it over a sword or hammer. As he approaches, he realizes that there is already a group practicing there.  
  
There are fifteen or so dwarves in a single line, shooting at targets one after another. It's an exercise in timing and teamwork. There is half a second where Kili is confused by the display. He spies Dwalin on the other side of the field, drilling a few new troops through their motions with wooden weapons.  
  
When they break, Kili makes his way over. "What's all that about?" he asks, nodding in the direction of the line of archers.

“Your brother didn’t tell you?” If Kili didn’t know any better, he’d say that Dwalin looks unsure.

Kili shakes his head. He tries to keep the little pulse of hurt under control. It’s a barely-there throb settling just under his ribs, waiting to explode into something sharp and terrible at a single word. He’d like to think that Fili wouldn’t exclude him from this, especially not now that they were sort of agreed on him being more involved in state affairs. Especially with something that is so obviously tied to his proficiency.

He’s never known Dwalin to hesitate, but he does it now, glancing back at the archers quickly. “You should be asking him,” he says with a slight incline of his head. He turns, attempting to go back to the field, but Kili stops him with a boldness that surprises even him; it’s almost disrespectful, and for a second Kili fears the reprimand that’s sure to come his way.

“I’m asking you,” he says before he can stop himself. “What’s going on?”

Dwalin looks like he wants nothing more than to shake off the hand Kili’s got on his arm; instead, he turns back, a crease between his eyebrows. “Lad, I’m not getting in the middle of whatever’s going on with you and him.”

“Of course not,” Kili says, too quickly. “I won’t drag you into it. Just tell me, please.”

There’s a deep, rumbling sigh before the words. “They’re being sent out to the woods tomorrow. It’s infested with Watchers, and Fili wants them gone.”

“Watchers?” It takes Kili a few seconds longer than it should to figure out what Dwalin means. “They’re bird things, aren’t they?”

“Aye. Now, anything more than that, take it up with your brother,” Dwalin says, gruff, and walks back to his trainees. Kili lets him go, gaze settling at the empty edge of the yard.

He remembers his trip out to the edge of the mountain weeks ago and the beast he brought back. He’s heard of Watchers. They have a more formal name, some Elvish word he can’t wrap his tongue around, and they are employed by various enemies of the Free Peoples. They’re the most unassuming spies; they usually don’t get too close to other living beings (perhaps because of the thick wave of fear that hangs over them like a cloud), and they are silent when not in flight.

There are a few troubling things about this situation, but they are troubles for later. He is more immediately concerned by the implications these archers present.

Why didn’t Fili tell him? He could have had some hand in training them if they needed it, he could have… he could be going out with them. Instead, he didn’t know anything about it.

Kili immediately turns and starts back up the way he came.

By the time he reaches his brother’s chambers, that little pulse of hurt that became present with Dwalin’s words has exploded into thick, hot anger. He doesn’t have time to calm himself, doesn’t get his thoughts in order before he’s pushing the door to the King’s rooms open and slamming it closed behind him.

He’s obviously interrupting what was meant to be a private conversation.

In everything going on lately, in all the avoiding he’d been doing, Kili had nearly forgotten that Bilbo was even still here. It made sense; he feels like he’d have heard if the hobbit was leaving, but he hadn’t. There’s a momentary flash of guilt that rises to combat the anger burning inside of him, but it loses the battle and slinks back down.

Fili looks over from his position near the fireplace. “Oi,” he says, eyes sharp, and Kili can’t keep himself from glaring.

“I need to talk with you,” Kili says, vicious. “Now.”

His brother raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t dispute it. Without saying anything to Kili, he turns back to the hobbit. “Apologies, Bilbo. We can definitely make arrangements for you. Perhaps we can discuss the finer details later?”

Bilbo stands, nodding. “Of course. Thank you.”

Fili smiles at him; it’s a genuine smile, if a little tight, and Kili doesn’t take his eyes off his brother even as Bilbo nods to him and passes. Once the door is shut behind him, Fili lets out a long sigh and crosses his arms over his chest. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t just—“

“Don’t,” Kili cuts him off. “You of all people don’t need to lecture me on manners.”

For a long time, neither of them speaks. There is a dangerous silence on the air, heavy tension hanging between them.

“You’re sending archers to the woods,” Kili says. It’s not a question. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

Fili sighs again. “Kili, I was going to—“

“When?”

“That’s why I wanted to see you yesterday, actually. You were too busy avoiding me to give me a chance to say anything.”

Kili snorts. “You had plenty of opportunities. And it’s not enough that you—it’s the thing I found, isn’t it? The thing I brought back?”

There is a moment when he can tell Fili’s thinking about denying it, thinking about passing it off as something else. He can tell the exact moment when he realizes he’s trapped in this truth. “Crebain,” Fili says, foreign vowels falling so easily from his mouth. “Watchers, from one of the enemies we’ve no doubt made. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be like this. This is so much bigger than any of us, if the letters I’ve been getting are any indication. I don’t want to put you in a position to get hurt.”

It isn’t comforting, not like it’s meant to be. If anything, it only makes Kili angrier. “How many times do I have to remind you that I’m not a child? I can take care of myself, you know I can! How many more battles do I have to survive to get you to see that?”

Fili gives a small twitch of his head at this, almost a flinch, and Kili takes a moment to be satisfied that Fili’s just as affected by awful memories of that day as he is.

“It’s not about how capable you are. I don’t doubt your abilities. But Kili, you’re all I have left.” There’s almost a need in Fili’s voice, something raw and frightening. They aren’t given to such declarations, never have been, and Kili almost takes a step back. “The Line of Durin ends with us. I don’t want to risk that by sending you out on something that can be easily left to others.”

There are a thousand things that Kili wants to say to this, a thousand damning things. It all comes down to one, one perilous thought that he doesn’t want to voice. It rises up anyway, something dark and forbidden churning in his gut even as the words leave him. “Is that all it is?”

The look on Fili’s face is almost comical, would be if the situation wasn’t so dire, if Kili didn’t feel like each second that passed was bleeding him out. They both know what he means even if neither of them wants to voice it. It hangs in the air, charged, between them. Fili’s mouth works, rapidly trying to find something to say, something that makes it seem less like the truth.

Kili looks away, eyes fixed on the floor. It isn’t a surrender; he’s too far gone now to drop the issue, despite having the last word for now. If he keeps looking at Fili, floundering for the words to make everything okay again, he feels like he might break into a thousand pieces.

“Bilbo’s leaving, isn’t he?” He says, glances up to see Fili’s mute nod. It was obvious enough; the Hobbit had been here nearly a year, and he had this own home and affairs to attend to in the Shire. “You’ll be assigning him an advance guard to return him safely, as befitting a friend of a King. I’m going.”

“No, you can’t.” Fili says, sharp, and he doesn’t sound like himself. “You’re needed here.”

“I’d be far more useful out there. You can’t… you can’t do this to me. You can’t smother me into safety. I’m not—“ and here he stops, because what he was about to say goes too far, even for this argument.

He remembers, with a clarity he’s been trying to stifle, the way Thorin looked day after day while they searched for the King’s Jewel. He remembers the way he raved, how he was entirely unlike himself, how he nearly condemned them all to death to keep it safe.

He can’t be that for Fili. He won’t. He won’t watch this protectiveness, misplaced now for years, morph into something that will tear everything down around them.

It’s too close for comfort. They need to be careful. He’d like to believe that Fili wouldn’t let himself go like that, that he’d hold steadfast to his duties and let Kili do what he must.

“Kili, no. I won’t let you.”

“Are you going to order me to stay, My Lord?” Kili snaps his gaze to Fili’s, dark and dangerous, and the way their wills are battling just in that single gaze is almost a physical feeling.

For half a second, Fili looks like he’s going to do just that. Kili feels the kick in his gut, the way his limbs ache for a fight; he will not be ordered around like this. And then Fili deflates, shoulders dropping, and he looks back at the empty hearth.

“That’s what I thought.” He can’t resist gloating, even if he knows he shouldn’t. Fili looks nearly twice his age, jaw set as he fixes his gaze on the ashes.

Another second of silence passes. Kili feels his pulse in his ears, the roar of victory threatening to blot out everything else. “I will let Master Baggins know that we will be leaving as soon as he is ready,” he says, and leaves the room without another word.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this has been way too long in coming. I am truly sorry. This has been a very long and trying six months, and I feel as though I'm just now getting my feet back under me. In any case, I'd like to point out that I am in no way abandoning this fic. I'd really like to get it finished as quickly as possible but I realize that might sound hollow and ambitious to all of you. In any case, enjoy this: it's not worth the wait by any means but I feel accomplished to finally get it out. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr at feel-yfilifeels, and there is another fic in this 'verse now which is an as-of-yet unfinished collection of small one-shots in holiday prompts for the Advent Calendar last year. That, too, will be completed one day. Just be patient with me. ;)
> 
> Note that this is the chapter that bumps up the rating. :D

A fortnight later, most all of the preparations have been made for Bilbo’s return to the Shire.

Dwalin tells Fili that Kili’s been hand-selecting a group of warriors to take with them as an honor-guard of sorts. At least, that’s what must be happening; Kili takes to standing outside the practice ring at varying times throughout the day, observing the dwarves running through the drills to keep their sword arms strong. He goes and talks to them after he observes for a while, and from how many he’s spoken to it will be a fairly sizable guard.

This isn’t at all the reason Fili finds himself in the practice ring, groups of people gathered around the outside perimeter to watch him do the only thing he was ever confident in doing. Fili hasn’t visited this part of the mountain before; in the long months since the city was livable again, he’s been too tied up in meetings and negotiations to find the time to do anything about the itch in his palms that means they want the hilt of a sword.

Now, however, he’s miraculously found the required time.

It’s difficult at first to find the right way to heft the weight of his weapons. He’s been away from them for too long, and it will take a few moments of adjusting to remember how to make them extensions of himself. Once he does, drills come back with no hesitation. He hacks the wooden target to pieces within the first few swings, chips of wood flying off of it almost comically.

The gathered crowd cheers, and the sound makes Fili’s blood sing; this is what he was made for. The strain on his muscles is a sweet pain, the consequence of remembering their strength. This is what he was born to do.

He turns to where he left Dwalin, leaning against the ornate door to the armory where they keep the wooden weapons and blunted swords. It’s an effort to keep the look off his face, the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. His success is measured by the look Dwalin gives him in return, standing to his full height and shrugging off his heavy coat. His axes lay not far away, propped against the side of the building, and without asking or receiving any sort of assent he takes them up, one in each hand, and moves into position opposite Fili.

For a moment they stand facing each other, matching smiles almost deranged. It’s been too long since they’ve had this little piece of familiarity. Of course he speaks to his old mentor every day, but only really regarding matters of the mountain’s defenses, guard patrols and any place he finds where defenses could be heavier. They discuss rebuilding a standing army, they discuss how many more suits of armor and swords need to come from the forges to fit that army’s need.

But they haven’t done this since an afternoon what seems like a thousand years ago, in a dusty summer field on the edge of the village, Kili watching and stifling his good-natured laughter when Fili found his back on the dirt for the dozenth time.

There is a dull ache, almost forgotten, in the shoulder he was shot in. He readjusts his grip on the hilt of his sword, rolling the disused muscles. This isn’t what he used to feel like. Now he won’t be able to wield his weapons without remember the sharp flash of steel sinking into his flesh. For a very long time, it will feel inherently unnatural.

Instead of letting it overcome him, he uses it, lunges forward and waits for Dwalin to intercept.

They run each other back and forth across the sizable area, stone under his boots instead of grass, and it should feel more natural but it only puts him slightly off-balance.

He’s embarrassingly out of practice.

It’s a few moments of this, watching the slight tell in the way Dwalin moves just before he strikes, before Fili finally catches a glimpse of Kili. His brother is leaning against the enclosure, watching the way they match each other. He’s dressed more regally than previous, royal blues and delicate silver and gold threaded into the geometry of his clothing. His hair again has the traditional braids of his status, marking him as an heir.

Fili hasn’t seen those braids woven into dark hair in a long time. He fumbles, misses a step, and Dwalin nearly takes his wrist. He shouts something, something he used to say when Fili was still mostly useless with a blunt blade, and Fili immediately snaps to, falls back into the rhythm of the melee. He’s distracted through the rest of their drills, but by the time they let off Fili is drenched in sweat, his muscles aching in that well-used way he misses so much.

He looks for his brother as he tries to catch his breath, eyes sweeping the crowd that’s gathered to watch him fight, but he doesn’t manage to pick Kili out. With one last sweep of the crowd and a low bow to the gathered, he crosses the yard and slips into the practice armory, closing the door heavily behind him. He can hear Dwalin outside calling out for the next challenger; he’s enjoying himself too much, and Fili smiles as he leans back against the wood.

He half-expects Kili to stride through the door on the other side of the armory looking murderous, but there is only silence stretching around him. After another few moments of resting, Fili collects his things and makes his way back to his apartments to ready himself for the delegates supposedly arriving from Gondor this afternoon.

*

 

Dinner the next day finds him seating the head of a private table. It feels indescribably comfortable not to have to wear the effects of his title; this dinner is only for himself, Bilbo, and Kili. He suspects it might end up being just for two, because he doesn’t expect Kili to show up. It would be following his patterns of behavior lately.

Even with the servants milling around, even being able to dress down to a simple tunic instead of heavy vestments, Fili shifts in his seat, anticipating what unpleasantness might come of this meeting. He knows that given the chance any discussion with Kili will become an argument, and with the date of his brother’s departure from the mountain looming (though he doesn’t have a date yet, and dreads asking), arguing with Kili is the last thing Fili wants to do. Has ever wanted to do.

Bilbo is of course the first to arrive, dressed in one of his best waistcoats. His impeccable timing and perfectly Hobbitish manners (though by all accounts they could just be Bilbo’s manners; Fili’s never met another Hobbit. According to Gandalf he is by no means the model by which to gauge their race) mean that Fili has another handful of moment to anticipate his brother’s arrival.

If Kili chooses to grace them with his presence.

“I am going to miss this,” Bilbo chuckles as a servant lays the tables with overflowing silver platters piled with all manner of food. “I’ll have to start cooking my own meals again.” Though it was meant to be a jest, the look in Bilbo’s eyes tells Fili that this won’t be much of a hardship at all.

“Bombur will miss your eye for seasoning, as will we all.” Fili glances at the door and almost immediately chastises himself for doing so.

“Ah, nonsense,” Bilbo says as he begins to laden his own dish, but he looks rather pleased with himself. Fili will miss having Bilbo around, though they haven’t gotten much time to speak at all. Still, having at least one nearly-constant agreeable creature in the vicinity has been a blessing.

They talk on all matter on inconsequential things while they await Kili. They’re nearly through the first course of the meal when he finally shows up, looking sullen and badly trying to hide that he’d almost decided not to come.

Fili greets him as he should, tries to make his smile reach his eyes, but he wants nothing more than to tell Kili how much a child he’s acting. It’s not at all fair; in this situation, Fili is far from being mature and diplomatic about everything. But Kili acting like he’s being followed around by his own personal raincloud is getting old very quickly.

Perhaps some time away from the mountain will do him good.

As soon as he has the thought, he disregards it and tries not to feel too guilty about having it in the first place.

Once the niceties have been done away with, and before Kili has the chance to offer any information himself, Fili begins, “Dwalin tells me you’ve amassed a guard.”

Kili nods, carefully avoiding his eyes. “I’ve retained 30 trusted warriors as an honor guard.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?” Bilbo asks. “We made it nearly through unharmed coming this way, and on the return journey we have friends where we didn’t before.” He’s referring to Mirkwood; the shaky treaty with the woodland realm will make the journey much less perilous. But there is still the Wilderland, the Misty Mountains to cross (preferably actually cross this time, instead of crawling under them). On the other side lies Rivendell, and the journey west from there should be uneventful.

Kili glances at Fili. “There are different dangers this time. With thirty, we will be prepared for whatever we happen across.”

Unspoken between them is the fact that they haven’t heard from Gandalf in quite a long time. Gandalf had been checking in when he was in this part of the world, and of course with the business of Dul Guldur – assuming the worst would not be unreasonable. Taking these precautions is what will keep them alive.

Bilbo looks unsure for a moment, but whatever protests he was thinking of making die before they make it to his tongue. “If you think it's best,” he says, cautious. “I may be able to find room to put them all.”

“There are inns if need be,” Kili assures him, fixing him with a smile that Fili is immediately jealous of. When was the last time that smile was directed at him? Still, he is impressed with Kili’s forethought towards the safety of the journey; perhaps it weighs as heavy on his mind as it still does on Fili’s.

Silence lapses between the three of them; Bilbo looks between them covertly while they pretend to look elsewhere. It’s not an easy silence, and when it finally stretches past the point of ridiculousness, it’s Bilbo who breaks it. “Have you received any return correspondence from Ered Luin? I assume those left at Thorin’s Hall will be happy to return to the Mountain.”

The question strikes Fili as odd considering the nature of their previous conversation. He catches the look Kili throws Bilbo, long-suffering and just the tiniest bit panicked.

“I… no, not yet. I assume it will reach us on the road,” Kili answers, eyes fixed on his plate. “In any case I’m sure they’ll be ready to return in the time given.”

“Ready to return?” Fili asks, looking between them. “What do you mean? I thought that all who wished to leave Ered Luin were here already.”

Kili hesitates a moment, visibly braces himself. “I’ve been speaking with mother, and apparently she has received letters from friends and relations – they’d very much like to come, but mostly the families remaining are those with elderly, or dwarves otherwise unfit to fight. Mother and I agree that with the honor guard, it will be a far easier task to bring the rest home.”

There’s a half-second delay between Fili hearing his brother’s words and the immediate anger that wants to come with them. He wasn’t informed that this was happening, and considering how close to him it was happening, he should have been. He should have made the decision.

And then he realizes, a tad too late (but thankfully before the words have left his mouth), that when voiced these thoughts would sound privileged and too overindulged for someone his age. So he bites down on the inside of his mouth until he tastes blood and tries not to think about the fact that Kili was going to go to the other side of the world without telling him.

“Very well,” he manages to push out. “Have you set a date for departure?”

Bilbo looks relieved that things haven’t blown up like he obviously expected them to, and that look alone is enough to put things in perspective. Fili deflates a little, remembering Thorin’s last few months and the fear of him that lay over them all, thick and unyielding.

He doesn’t want to repeat his uncle’s mistakes.

“Next week will serve, I think,” Bilbo says, reloading is plate. “As much as I like it here, I miss my own hearth and home.”

Fili nods, tries to smile but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He fixes his gaze on a point on the opposite wall, past both his brother and Bilbo, and wishes for the meal to pass quickly. 

*

Apparently the feeling is shared between all of them. Kili leaves as soon as he is able, Bilbo as soon as it’s polite to, and Fili is left alone at the small table with his thoughts and the clatter of dishes as the servants gather them for cleaning.

He’d be lying to himself if he insisted he wasn’t panicking, because he is. Kili is going to the other side of the world. The enemy is on the move, and Kili is going to be out there. Somehow this is worse than any of the other times Kili’s been hurt or separated from him – because this time it’s by choice, a small poisonous voice whispers at him. Also because he won’t know for quite a while if something happens – if he ever does.

What if… what if Kili never comes back? What if he never hears?

Fili swallows back the blind fear rising in his throat and stands, nearly knocking the heavy, ornate chair over on the way. He has a week until Kili leaves; perhaps he can stow his fears until then.

For the next few days Kili is safe. Kili isn’t his, and Kili isn’t sound. But he’s safe. And at this point, that’s all he can ask for. 

*

The week flies by, quicker than an arrow shot from an archer’s bow. The night before they’re set to leave, Fili waits up, expects Kili to seek him out. He doesn’t know why he’s torturing himself like this; he knows how things are between them and he is above trying to imagine Kili will suddenly be warmer to him. Still, he doesn’t exactly know where he went wrong, what happened when he tried to fix it and what soured the attempt.

So he sits up and waits. He can count on one hand the number of times Kili has left him waiting, and most of them have happened in the past year and a half.

He is oddly disappointed when tonight joins that number.

He doesn’t sleep, even though he should; he lays awake in the dim light of the fire and waits still.

*

The morning comes before it is welcome, the muted sunlight falling through the shafts and into Fili’s bedchamber. He’s been watching the embers in the hearth dwindle away, watching the hours melt off the candle on the nightstand. It’s a foolish thing to hope that it will make a difference, that if he doesn’t allow the day to dawn in the usual way Kili won’t leave.

But he only gets to spend a few more moments pretending to sleep, because the next moment there is a sharp rap at his door, and it opens without permission.

It isn’t a servant like he expected, but his mother. She’s already dressed, hair perfectly piled into intricate braids on the top of her head. Her dress is shiny velvet, the shade of Durin blue Fili’s always associated with Thorin, and she looks like she’s gotten just about as much sleep as Fili has.

“Fili,” she says, closing the door quietly behind her. She comes to sit on the edge of his bed, unmindful of the messy sheets. He looks up at her, trying in vain to be less of a sulking child and more the King she’s watched him fail at trying to become. Dis runs her fingers through his hair, untangling thick, twisted strands of it – he returns to watching the fire and leans into her touch, tries not to feel too ashamed at doing so.

The moments tick by; Dis braids his hair and loosens it again, only stands once to retrieve his mithril clasps before she returns, smoothing through his hair and picking out the familiar chunks of it, twisting them around each other intricately. The sunlight filtering in is bright now, a far cry from the murky dawn, by the time his braids are in place (she leaves his moustache for his own hands; he’s never let anyone else do those for him, and she knows all too well how sensitive he is about it).

“Come on, little gem. We are needed at the gates.” Her tone is soothing, but the words send something akin to fear down his spine, and he closes his eyes, clenches his jaw.

“Perhaps you are,” he says, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. “I think it might be best if—“

Dis tugs a little sharply at the hair in her hands. “No, Fili. You will never forgive yourself.” When he looks up at her, there is something dark in her eyes, something in the line of her brow that makes him heed her words. She stands and bustles off to his dressing chamber.

It is so eerily quiet that he can hear her rustling fabrics as she picks through all of his ceremonial vestments, tutting to herself quietly as she does so. Fili takes a deep breath, draws himself up and out of his bed, every muscle protesting the movement after laying still for so long. His shoulder aches, old wound flaring more often now that cold was settling in again.

When Dis returns, she’s holding the robes she best likes to see him in. They are a rich, brilliant red; Thrain’s red, and though Fili never met his grandfather taking the color he claimed for himself seems wrong somehow. The alternative is Thorin’s blue, and Fili will steadfastly leave it to Kili. His own brown is unfitted for his official clothes; Dis won’t acknowledge that she’s making sure the tailors only fit him in jewel tones, but he suspected she has everything to do with it.

“You must hurry,” she says, laying the robes out on the bed. “Shall I send someone in…?”

“No,” Fili says, dragging his fingers over the heavy fabric. “No, I can dress myself.”

Dis nods, catches his eyes as he tries to turn away. “He’ll come around,” she says as she tugs his head down to plant a kiss in the center of his forehead. Fili snorts into her hair and doesn’t comment, doesn’t want to discuss this with his mother of all people. He doesn’t even want to think about it when he has a spare moment; talking about it makes it real, and while he pretends that it isn’t happening maybe things will figure themselves out.

He hasn’t had a promising run of luck, but he holds onto hope because it’s all he can do.

Dis leaves the room, the door clicking shut behind her, and Fili is left utterly alone.

He drags the preparations out as long as he can.

*

There isn’t a large crowd around the gate when he finally arrives, dragging his feet as though every step is bringing him closer to the Halls of Mandos.

Those members of the Company who have chosen to stay here are gathered around Kili and Bilbo, bidding their final farewells to the hobbit and imparting wishes of a safe journey. Fili stops just inside the mountain, watching for a moment the way his brother smiles, sharing easy companionship, and feels the familiar bite of jealousy and loss. Dis drags him along, her hand curled into his elbow. He sighs as he steps into the sunlight, plastering on his biggest smile and joining the small circle.

For the first time in a long time, Kili doesn’t shut down. His smile pulls a bit strained, but he doesn’t push himself away. Dis pulls him into a hug without preamble, burying her face in the front of his tunic and squeezing him tight enough to have Kili stammering, trying to pull away, but still laughing.

When she pulls back, she reaches into the front pocket of her dress and draws out a dark stone, the same that Kili carried so close to himself for the entire journey east.

He’d returned it to her when she arrived; slipped it stealthily into her pocket when she leaned in to hug him. She never mentioned it; they’ve never spoken about it, but now she runs her fingers over the engraving and presses it into Kili’s palm. “Promise,” she says, stern, and Kili looks like he’s going to laugh.

“Mother—“

“Promise.”

Kili leans close, whispers his promise directly into her ear, and she clutches at him again briefly. He smiles down at her, and Fili watches them together with a detachment he didn’t think he’d ever come to associate with the only steadfast and ever-present members of his family.

He steps up beside her and clears his throat, and when they part Dis is trying very hard to hide the tears welling in her eyes. “Everything will be okay,” he says, and attempts a reassuring smile.

“Yes,” Kili agrees, eyes flicking between them. “I’m hardly going off to war.”

Dis doesn’t quite catch the small sound that escapes her.

Fili takes a deep breath and turns to face his brother. “Whatever you might think—“

“Save it,” Kili cuts him off, rests a hand on his shoulder cautiously. “We can… when I get back, we can…” He trails off, not quite sure how to put it in words.

Fili’s only answer is a stiff nod, and for a moment they just stand there, not looking at each other. “Brother,” he finally says when the silence stretches on too long, startled at how hard the word comes to him. “I won’t tell you to be careful, because I know you can take care of yourself. Just… return swiftly, and in one piece.”

Kili catches his eyes and nods, looking away again. “No promises, but I’ll do what I can.”

They stand there for another moment, before Fili gives Kili his best strained smile and steps away, lets him mount his pony and get his saddlebags arranged to his comfort.

“I will send word at Rivendell,” Kili promises. “Take care of mother.”

Dis scoffs, ready to protest that she doesn’t need taking care of, but Kili only smiles at her and digs his heels into the pony’s sides. He rides off to where the honor guardsmen are saying their goodbyes to their families, rides among them (no doubt dispensing reassurances that their husbands and fathers will return as quickly as they can).

“You are always welcome here,” Fili tells Bilbo when he can finally catch the hobbit’s attention. “And please don’t stay away. If you ever get bored of your armchair, you can return and get your fill of excitement.”

Bilbo laughs, jamming his thumbs into the pocket of his waistcoat. “I’m quite sure a quiet retirement in the Shire will be as boring as it sounds now I’ve seen all this.”

"Surely not. You'll be the talk of the Shire with all of your tales." 

Bilbo laughs again, "They will think me mad. Mad Baggins they will call me, I expect." 

There is silence for a moment. Bilbo fiddles with his pocket and bestows one last smile on the rest of the company, starts checking the straps on his pony's saddle and stroking her nose. At the little nod of his head Fili follows. 

"I wanted to say," Bilbo starts, and when he looks up there is some of the old sadness on his eyes. "It's wonderful, what you've done here. I think he would've been proud." 

The words lay in the air between them. Fili tries to calm his racing thoughts, head suddenly full of a thousand things he wants to say. He wants to question the notion but it's no use; his mind wanders to Thorin's tomb, the cold stone likeness of his uncle's face. In the end, he can only nod, cast his gaze downward and try not to think too hard about what the hobbit is actually saying. 

Bilbo touches his arm briefly, a comforting motion, and mounts his pony with one last wave to the dwarves assembled near the front gate. Fili steps away and watches Bilbo ride off towards the small guard. Kili is already mounted among them, waiting patiently for the last of them to gather their things and kiss their wives goodbye. 

In the early morning sun he can almost trick his mind into believing that nothing is wrong. Kili turns to him and for one shining moment he’s smiling, bright and unerring as ever. 

Another few moments pass and Fili keeps his eyes glued to his brother. When the time comes for them to ride off, Kili shouts something to the guard that Fili can't make out, and they start their slow measured canter down the path leading away from the mountain, the path that will eventually turn west. 

Kili turns back and gives him a nod, a smile, and then he's faded out of sight. 

Fili wants to believe that it's not the last time he'll see his brother. He wants to believe that Kili will come back, but his chest aches with the knowledge that he could have messed everything up so badly that Kili would take the first opportunity to run to the other side of the world. 

He aches, and his mother's comforting touch is like a brand over all his layers. 

*

The rest of the day is long and tiring. The immutable feeling of loss aches in every moment, and somehow the mountain feels emptier without his brother in it. He’s wished before that he was going with them, that he and Kili would find their camaraderie on the road, away from the politics and strains of running a country. Today will not be the last time he wishes it.

Long after the mountain is asleep, Fili lays awake and remembers.

He doesn’t want to remember, not necessarily; happier times and all that, and if he doesn’t remember perhaps he can maintain some sense of separation from the slow want that’s steadily making its way back through him. Most nights he thinks he can almost hear the chink of miner’s pickaxes in the deep, the stone settling around the city.

Tonight, there is silence, and Fili is stuck in his memories.

It was cold that night. He remembers the snow piled outside the windows, dwindling slightly from the buildup of the past few weeks. Cold, but not as cold as it had been. It’d been weeks since the first time Kili kissed him, weeks of agonizing longing that Fili could never quite push aside; everything he’d wanted was in his grasp and he only felt like pulling away. It was wrong, what he wanted, what they were doing. If they stopped now, maybe it wouldn’t count. Maybe they could move on.

But there was no moving on, and it didn’t matter how wrong it was or how guilty he felt about it. Fili couldn’t get the way his brother kissed out of his mind; inexperienced, too brash at first, but perfect all the same.

Kili had taken to crawling into his bed when the cold of the night settled in, when the fire in the Great Room died and no one was awake to tend it. Sometimes Fili would wake, move aside so Kili would have room. It was a long time before they got to sleep on those occasions, wrapped around and through each other. As the weeks passed, Kili got better at controlling himself, at slow, languishing kisses that stretched on for what felt like hours. He got better at tearing Fili apart with those kisses, at putting him back together with hands smoothing over the back of his head, threaded through his hair.

And that’s all there was at first. In the dead of the night they could become intoxicated with each other, build up a solid buzz that would last through to the next night, which would find them again huddled under Fili’s blankets, pressed close together.

Kili wanted more. Kili always wanted more, always wanted everything Fili had to give, and Fili was happy to oblige. This time it felt huge, dark, too much too quickly. Kili pushed at all of Fili’s restraints until it was all Fili could do to untangle himself from the cage of his brother’s limbs and leave the room, sinking against the door as soon as it was closed and bringing himself off in the hallway, biting down on his own fist to stifle the noises that wanted to escape.

Tonight is different.

There’s a thick, steady snow falling outside, and as soon as the fire dies a cold settles over the house. Fili waits for what feels like hours for Kili to cross the room. Finally, long past the time when they would have fallen asleep, he hears the rustling of Kili’s blankets, the soft thump of his feet hitting the floor. Fili’s stomach jumps at the sound, and he lets out a shaky breath, anticipating.

He turns, raising the blankets for Kili to crawl in. The dark shadow that is his brother stands uncertainly between their beds for a moment, and Fili wishes he could see his face.

“Kili,” he says, soft, barely a sound in the silence.

He hears Kili's exhale, the same sound he makes when he raises his sword to take the first blow against Dwalin in the practice ring. The fluttering feeling in Fili's gut kicks up a few notches at the hesitation in Kili's posture, the determined set of his shoulders. The air is suddenly charged with something somehow more serious than anything between them before. A second's more hesitation and Kili works his way under the blankets.

Before he can draw his next breath, his brother is melting against him. It's more full contact than he's allowed since the first time Kili kissed him, and for half a second Fili lets himself just feel it, the weight of Kili against him, solid and warm.

Kili makes a small, desperate sound and rolls his body into Fili's, warmth pulling away for just long enough for Fili to miss it and surging back. For a long moment Fili freezes, betrayed by his body and the feel of Kili against him, tempted almost to the point of breaking.

And then Kili is kissing him, preoccupying his thoughts; it's a slow, measured kiss, one meant to rip Fili's defenses apart with the slow slide of tongues and the gentle press of lips.

Fili clutches at his brother's waist, hands resting there, squeezing when he thinks he can get away with it. His hands rest against the thin material of Kili's sleeping shirt, pulling at the material when his fingers clutch at it. Kili makes a sound and rolls again, and suddenly Fili is clutching at the bare skin of Kili's side. He can feel the cut of his brother's emerging muscles under his palms, the way his muscles bunch and relax when he moves his body.

He moves his hand away, higher, to the point where he's only touching fabric and Kili pulls out of the kiss, whines against his mouth. He clutches Fili's hand with his own and moves it back to where he wants it, just above the waistband of the pants he wears to sleep. "Please," he whispers, a broken sound in the silence. "Please, Fili."

Fili only hesitates for a handful of seconds, succumbing to the warm skin underneath his hands, the scrape of the hair on Kili's belly when he grows bold and moves, crossing his abdominal muscles and breathing in a sharp sound at the way they bunch with Kili's movement. Kili lets out a breath, desperation and relief, and Fili catches his mouth again. He feels lightheaded, and he feels perfectly hot line of Kili’s arousal against his hip.

Before he can give himself a chance to deny this, Fili does what Kili so obviously wants, pushing his hand under the waistband of Kili's pants, feeling the soft leather of the ties straining against the back of his hand.

For a full second there is still, and silence, just the sound of their breathing, harsh, quick movement. For a full second Fili hovers there, hand poised just under the waist of Kili's pants, fingertips just brushing the curly black hair that frames his cock.

And then Kili moves, hips stuttering up into the brush of Fili's fingers, makes a half-strangled noise and says "please" again as his hips work. Fili wants to hate the way it affects him, the way his fingers twitch with the need to touch. He wants to hate that he wants it. But with Kili writhing against him, the crack in his voice when he asks, he finds it impossible to do anything but obey.

The first touch is hesitant; a brush of fingers over Kili’s heated flesh and even that is thrilling, forbidden. He wants to see, wants to watch the way his brother pants in the firelight, and it is nearly painful to realize he must wait. He shouldn't even have this, but in the dark of their room he gives in to the way Kili’s hips buck into his touch, the stifled little noise that means Kili’s biting his lip.

He runs his free hand through his brother’s hair, tangling in long strands. He wants to say something, anything, to impart just how much this means, how amazing Kili is, but the next moment Kili seeks his mouth out, bites into his lip and stifles the little cries he makes into Fili’s mouth. Fili swallows them down, revels in them, and moves his hand as slowly as he dares.

The next time Kili pulls away, it’s to curse at him, soft against his mouth in the dark. “More,” he gasps, and Fili wants to deny him, wants to stretch this moment out forever, but the longer he stays still the more impatient Kili gets, bucking into his hand with wild thrusts, seeking what friction he can.

It takes Fili a handful of moments to work out how he can get the room to work when Kili is moving against him like he is, taking away the room between them with every shift of his hips. Before long he finds his pace and the room to execute it, and he twists his wrist as much as he is able, applies firm pressure where he knows he likes it and hopes that it’s good for Kili as well.

By the sounds falling out of his brother’s mouth, his fears are unfounded. Fili’s eyes are adjusted to the dark enough to just make his face out, eyes fallen shut and mouth gaping, gasping in air. One of Kili’s hands is resting on the arm Fili has down between them, the other clutching at the sheets with enough force to tear them if he isn’t careful.                                                                                                                                                                    

It’s the fear of being heard, of their mother’s room just down the hall that has Fili kissing the breath out of his brother, enjoying the way Kili is slack with pleasure even as his body draws taut. Kili bucks into him and decides that it isn’t enough, that he needs more contact, more of Fili. He shifts a little into his brother’s side, uses his hands to position him the way he wants as he slides over him, hands braced on the mattress on either side of Fili’s shoulders and his full weight pressing Fili into it.

All of the room Fili had to work is gone, hand crushed between them. He huffs and works his way out of his brother’s pants, brings his hand still sticky with precome to ruck up Kili’s shirt, runs his hands over his back. When Kili whines, thrusts up, he brings his hips into perfect alignment with Fili’s and they both groan, unable to stifle the unexpected sound. It feels impossibly loud in the dark and Fili holds his breath, bites the inside of his cheek and waits to hear the sounds of his mother coming to check on them.

The seconds tick by; Kili slowly works his nerve up again and thrusts against him. Fili bites his lip bloody trying to keep himself quiet, but Kili runs his fingertips over Fili’s jaw, the beard just starting to grow out, and rests them over his mouth. Without letting himself think about it, Fili takes one of those fingers into his mouth, rolls his tongue over the pad of Kili’s finger and the sound he makes is reward enough for his brashness.

Fili digs his fingertip in to his brother’s shoulder, dragging his nails down skin, and moves his other free hand down to back of Kili’s pants, grasping at flesh and urging him to move. His legs fall open automatically and it gives them more friction, more contact; Kili moves wildly, dragging every inch of himself along every inch of his brother. The cloth that separates them does little to stop the heat and stopping now to move it out of the way is out of the question.

For several long moments they stay like this, hips jerking in a mockery of an act neither of them know anything about outside of theory, but the motion itself is enough to have their eyes rolling back. Kili sinks his teeth into Fili’s neck, a harsh bite that makes Fili’s hips jerk; the edge of pain on top of all of the sensation flooding up his spine is nearly too much, and with him moving as well the bed creaks and cracks at them, disturbed by their frenzied movement.

Suddenly, Kili jerks, leaves off the skin in his mouth and lets out a sound that has Fili’s breath quickening with arousal and fear of discovery. He wants to stop it, should keep Kili quiet but it’s too perfect, and Fili lets out a small groan of his own. Kili rolls his hips, deeper, longer thrusts, and Fili watches as his face screws up, picture of pleasure, and there is heat flooding between them, Kili working his hips erratically as his fingers clutch and tear.

Fili can’t quite stop the sound he makes in response, and at the feel of that flooding, wet heat he’s lost as well, hips snapping as he grips Kili hard enough to bruise, gritting his teeth so hard it’ll hurt. It lasts for an indeterminate amount of time, the waves of pleasure washing over him and soaking his mind until he can’t reason why he should be quiet anymore. As if from very far away, he hears Kili laugh, a quiet, low sound, and he follows it back to a place where he can breathe.

For a moment, they lay panting in the dark, Kili slumped over him gracelessly, stifling his laughter into Fili’s neck. When he finally has the presence of mind to move, he only flops over, moving the blankets as he does so and leaving half of Fili’s body open to the cold night air, sweat drying on his skin.

He wants to put rules into place. He wants to tell Kili how amazing he is, that they can only do this when they can be absolutely sure not to be caught, that this is dangerous but he doesn’t care because he never wants to stop. All of these words die on his tongue. When the house settles around them, quiet again after their flurry of moment, Fili only moves his hand up and down his brother’s side, soothing, and whispers Kili’s name until they both fall asleep. 


End file.
